2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Resumes

2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés

Seminars@Hadley

The Secrets of Writing Attention-Getting Résumés

Presented by Trae Shaw Stephen Pandov

Moderated by Billy Brookshire

September 22, 2011

Billy Brookshire I’d like to welcome to Seminars@ Hadley. I’m Billy Brookshire. Today we’re going to be talking about the Secrets of Writing Attention Getting Résumés. You know research tells us that the employers, prospective employers only look at those Résumés that come into their inboxes for about 30 seconds and then they move onto the next one.

So what you’ve got to do is put something on that résumé that draws people’s attention to that, and that’s what Trae and Stephen are here to talk with you about today. And I want to give them as much time as I can, so I’m not going to talk much more. I do want to say one more thing; Trae Shaw and Stephen

Pandov are career guidance instructors here at Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center in beautiful Austin, Texas. Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center is celebrating its 40th birthday folks, big anniversary and so it’s great starting out this celebration with Stephen and Trae to talk with you about Résumés.

So that I don’t waste more of their time, let me introduce you to our speakers today, Trae Shaw and Stephen Pandov.

Stephen Pandov This is Stephen and I’m going to begin to talking to you about Résumés. First of all, we thank you for moderating this seminar for us, Hadley very nice folks to make this available to the people out there who want to learn about how to make a good résumé that is likely to grab the attention of potential employers, and that is likely to hopefully get you an interview, that is the whole idea.

And a résumé is a really big part of the employment seeking process. A résumé really is a document in which you include information such as your education, your experience, your work history, whatever employment skills you have that you may want to list there relevant to the employment that you’re looking for.

And of course you definitely want to include some contact information, and I’m going to go into detail in a second here about how exactly to format the résumé, and what goes where, more or less. And I say more or less, because there really isn’t a widely-accepted format that is definitely the correct way to do a résumé. In other words, there is a lot of ways to format your résumé and to put things in there, and the most important part, as Billy said a while ago is to grab the attention of an employer and to make sure that your résumé stands out.

So more than anything when an employer is looking at Résumés, they’re looking for the qualifications that the particular job listing requires. So it’s important to know that you guys have the qualifications that are required for a position that you’re applying for. Other than that, Résumés can vary in the way they look and the way they’re formatted, the kind of things you put in there, but if the qualifications are not there, it’s going to be really tough. So I would like to encourage you to apply for positions for which you know that you’re qualified.

So your résumé is a chance to make a good impression, and it has to happen with the limit of a résumé is really not something everybody has agreed

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 3 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés on as well, but most commonly you see something varying in length from one page to possibly even two pages. You don’t really want to go much longer than maybe a page, two pages, maybe even two and a half, but that’s really probably as long a résumé as I have ever seen. As Billy said, a résumé gets about 30 seconds.

So since the résumé is really the first impression is going to get from you other than the generic application that everybody fills out, but the résumé is really the document that will more closely give an impression of who you are as a potential employee, and so you want to make a good impression with your résumé. And that is done through format and what is in your résumé. But you do want to make sure that your résumé before you submit it, is ready to go, and everything has been corrected and everything is the way you want it to be, because it’s not likely that you will get an interview if your résumé does not look good. It’s kind of difficult to correct a wrong first impression.

So once your résumé has been viewed by the employer and he has determined or she has determined that you’re going to receive an interview, you need to know that that is because your résumé included the skills or the qualifications that the

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 4 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés position requires, or because it definitely in some way provided the impression that the employer was looking for.

Now, to have that résumé prepared, the first thing I’m going to stress is spell check and reality check, that’s kind of what I like to call it, spell check and reality check. Spell check is really important; it’s very common for people to have misspelled words, grammatically incorrect sentences, it’s important to run your spell check. And then it’s important to have somebody proofread your résumé in order to be able to catch the things that the spell check was not able to catch.

I remember I was writing a paper and I meant to use with, which would w-i-t-h in a sentence, but for some reason I had typed w-i-t-h-e and the spell check did not catch it, did not correct, because w-i-t-h-e is a word, but it’s not the right one, so that happens sometimes. You type a word spell check doesn’t catch because it’s correctly spelled; it’s just not the word you wanted to use in that résumé.

At this point I’m going to move onto the information a résumé should contain, and what you want to have on top, at the very beginning of your résumé is your contact information, objective, education, employment

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 5 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés history and skills that are relevant to the position for which you are applying. Generally, it agreed of people who are experts on résumé writing, agree that the contact information that you’re providing should probably the thing that your potential employer sees first, followed by objective.

So far as the rest, whether you put education or employment history or skills and in what order, that really is more up to you, and a lot of it depends on what you want to emphasize on. If you want to focus more on your employment history, because that is what you have more of, well then you probably should put that paragraph after your objective. If education is what you have more of, then you probably should put education on top. The whole idea is if your résumé gets about 30 seconds, and if it’s kind of long, the last parts of it, may not even get the attention that you would like for it to get from the employer. He just kind of looks over it and moves on.

Real quick thing here guys, no need to put references in your résumé, not that you shouldn’t or that you can’t. Again, these are all guidelines that most experts on résumé writing will agree with, but you know it’s not as if you did not get an interview because your résumé had a reference section, it’s not that crucial. But in general you don’t want to put your

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 6 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés references in your résumé, you can just put them in a separate document, or in the application as you’re filling it out, any of those will work.

Generally, there are four types of résumé. This is a chronological in which you list work-related work history and education and other events that you want to focus on, activities that you’ve participated in, but you list them in reverse chronological order, so that’s your chronological résumé.

There’s also a functional résumé, there is a combination and there is a target résumé. Personally, when I wrote my résumé, I wasn’t really a fan of identifying one specific for my résumé. What I wanted to do is to convey my qualifications in a concise manner, my contact information and to me it really didn’t matter, oh, let’s see let me try to identify my résumé is it functional or is it a combination résumé or is it a target résumé. I did not focus on that.

Most important in a résumé is to focus on your strengths, whether it’s education or its employment history. Now, when you’re writing a résumé and it comes down to the details, again, there isn’t necessarily a specific format, other than of course making sure that your résumé is grammatically – the sentences are well-written as far as that is taken care

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 7 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés of. But for example, would you put dashes between when you’re writing dates, so for example today’s date is September 22 of 2011, would you do 09-22- 2011, or would you put a slash, really there isn’t a specific way to do it, just kind of whatever you want to go with. A lot of people like to be – I personally like to put a slash, but some people put dash, so there is no – are you going to put the area code of your phone number in parenthesis or will you not. That again is up to you, I personally prefer to do it in parenthesis, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be done that way.

So I’m almost at the end here of my share of the presentation, but before I pass you to Trae, there is just a few more things I want to say. You want to have résumé available for access by employers through the internet, and you also want to have a print copy. The fancy stuff that you want to have on your résumé are different size fonts or colors, different ways in which you want to lay out information or present it, that should be saved for your print copy. The reason for that is because these things don’t come through very well when you’re sending your résumé through the computer. So the print copy is the one that you want to present your fancy format through, and as you know a print copy is one you usually send through the mail, some positions require

When you’re available on the internet, for employers to look at, because some of them do their search for potential employees on the internet, and it is important to do that because if potential employers do not know you exist, well then you quite frankly have no chance of being considered. So you want to make sure that you’re available. You want to make sure that you’re available so that they can give you a chance, read your résumé, hopefully get your interview.

The internet version of your résumé should have – you should just stick to a basic format, you know, highlighting stuff or fonts or whatever fancy stuff you want to do, that’s for your print copy, but your, let’s just call it the computer copy of your résumé that is going to be, you’re going to stick to a basic format for the reasons that I just mentioned a while ago.

You want to post your résumé on regular job boards as well as on other social media. One of the ones – or a few that I’d like to suggest would be LinkedIn and Facebook, and those are the most commonly used ones. But the whole reason behind that again is to be available for people to know that you are there, and

So at this point, I’m finished; I’m going to pass the microphone to Trae.

Trae Shaw Good morning everyone, this is Trae Shaw, along with Stephen Pandov, as Billy said I’m a career guidance instructor here at the Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center.

I think the first part I’d like to talk to you about is a little carrying off of what Stephen said about using the websites, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, for posting your digital résumé. It’s important these days that you focus on your online persona when searching for jobs; it’s a little detour from the talk of Résumés. But it’s important because employers out there are going to be searching for people on Google, and if you have a website, a more professional site like LinkedIn that has your occupational history on there, your education; it will be a good hit for them to find if they do do a search on you.

Stephen touched a little bit on the idea that format of your résumé, it’s very important, as he said, the first thing is of course your name, your address, the stuff they need to contact you, because hopefully they’re going to be trying to contact you. So we want that on there.

But the next part is that objective, and I think it’s important here if anyone has done any studying in

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 11 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés college or something, I’m sure they’ve heard repeatedly from the professors about the importance of that first sentence in their essays, because that’s what really grabs the attention of the reader. And that’s what your objective is like on your résumé. You really need to encompass everything that you have in your job history and what you can offer to the employer when they’re going to be reading that, because no one is only reading your résumé for 30 seconds out of malice or anything that. It’s because in a lot of positions these days, people are getting 500 plus applicants and so they only have 30 seconds to spend on it, and if you have an attention-getting objective that really describes the entirety of your work history and what you have done to make you a good employee, that will really grab their attention and maybe they’ll spend a little more than that 30 seconds because you’ve been able to grab them and pull them into your discussion here.

Now, what I’d like to talk about is things that can date your résumé. It’s important these days with the generation of Baby Boomers and everything that people are getting older, and ageism is an issue that exists out there and the types of things that you can run into is you need to check your job descriptions for places you’re applying and see what type of terminology they use. Because sometimes

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 12 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés terminology has changed from the way they used to describe things in the field you’re in, to how they describe them now, and you want to make sure that your résumé wording matches the same as the job description so it doesn’t show that yes, you had experience in there, but it might not be relevant, because it’s been too long.

When you’re checking those job descriptions, if there is something on there, new technology or programs that you may not be sure about, then that’s a good time to maybe take some adult education classes. Take a class with Hadley if they have over the problems – the things that you need to learn, and just make sure that you understand all those things on the job description and kind of relate to them in your résumé.

The types of things that date your résumé is graduation dates, if you graduated quite a while ago from school, you don’t really want to put that on your résumé. What’s important is that you did graduate, that you did get that education, not the time and when that you got it.

The other things are dated résumé styles that can really affect you. As Stephen touched on earlier if you decide to put references on there, you can go ahead

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 13 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés with that, but it’s no longer a time where you put references needed on request. Because a lot of time if employers see that, they’ll just say well, duh, well of course you’re going to give me references if I ask for them.

Gone are the days where you put every job that you’ve had on your résumé. I think myself prior to some of my more work experience I used to have on there that I was a Library Assistant, and it was important when I didn’t have a lot of job experience, but now that has nothing to with the field I’m in, and so it’s not something that I would put myself on my application, or on my résumé . It’s important too to only go back about ten years on your résumé. Show them the experience that’s really fresh, the experience you’ve gotten most recently and keeping that in mind sometimes it’s better to go back more than ten years, if it’s relevant job experience. Because that’s a lot of what’s important too is getting on all the information of things that you have done to fit into this job place.

And what’s important to have in there as well, is those transferrable skills. I think you can bring this in a lot of times with the titles of past jobs that you’ve had. An example of a bad job title would be if you just put Accounting, because that doesn’t really give anyone

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 14 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés an idea of what you did in accounting. A much better title would be something like management of accounting reports, or recordkeeping, something that really shows exactly what it was you were doing there. These things describe and if you were doing any managerial skills, like in the better title that I said management of accounting, then that shows a transferrable skill that you can use elsewhere. As I said harking back to my job previously as a Library Assistant over at Texas A&M, when I didn’t have more job experience, I used that to show that I had some experience doing clerical work, yes, my job wasn’t clerical per se, but I did a lot of that work answering phone, editing documents, using the fax and copier machine, and so I included those in my résumé and kind of focused on the fact of the skills that would transfer, I didn’t focus on shelving books and checking out documents, because that wasn’t something in the field that I was looking for.

Something else that has really gone away that maybe you used to do is just having that one résumé that you used everywhere you went. It’s really important that you have that basic résumé that you write up, but then constantly keep it updated and keep it customized, based on the jobs you’re applying for. It’s really important that if in a job description they focus on using the full Office Suite, that you put in

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 15 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés there hopefully you learned the Office Suite and then put in there that you can use the full Office Suite, try to take those buzz words that they put in the job description and plug them into the résumé. Because in that job description they’re telling you exactly what they want in a candidate. And so if you can take those ideas of what they want and plug them into your résumé, it’s more likely that they’re going to hit on those words and say, oh, hey, you know that’s exactly what I was looking for.

It’s important too, as Stephen was saying, that you know the length of Résumés with the shortness, you can’t really have a long résumé anymore, because they’re going to look at it, and say this is way too long, I don’t have time to read this, and so really get that relevant information up at the top as best as you can.

It’s really gone, the days of having you know those fluffy words in your résumé. An example really would be if you said I was responsible for managing blah, blah, blah. Just use the word “managed”, it makes it shorter, it gets to the point, no one wants to read lengthy descriptions of your jobs anymore, because they don’t have the time to read them.

It’s important too that you know that with unemployment as high as it is and there are so many

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 16 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés people applying that you really go maybe even move away from more of a kind of those sentence descriptions of your jobs, and move more to bullet points. I think a good example of this would be if I were to describe just a little bit about what I do here at Criss Cole, I could say I teach a variety of things at Criss Cole including working on Résumés and interviewing skills. That really is just too wordy; it’s too full of fluff. It would be much better if I could just say, I taught at Criss Cole, and then I could say, résumé Writing, Interviewing Skills, and bring these in as bullets and so it’s a much shorter version.

It’s important too that if you don’t have a lot of work experience to really get that volunteer experience and plug it in with your résumé. And as Stephen was saying with the different résumé models, you can fill that in, that experience that you had in volunteering right in there with your work experience, and show it, and that way it shows that you’re keeping up and you’re more relevant and focus on those transferrable skills as I said before.

I think something else that I’d like to touch on just for a little bit is the Curriculum Vitae; I think that’s correct Stephen. Stephen was helping me with my Latin earlier today just to make sure I could say it a little

I’d like to focus a little bit on what’s different than the résumé and the Curriculum Vitae. Your résumé as we said should be about one to two pages and focuses on your skills, your experience, your education, it’s brief, it’s concise, it really gets to the point. The places that you would use a Curriculum Vitae is international people outside the United States are going to be using that more for jobs in their application process. In the US, we use it more for academic, education, scientific and research positions. If you’re applying for some fellowships or some grants, it’s important in there to use a Curriculum Vitae. It’s longer, it’s more detailed, when you’re working on this, you do want to describe everything. Of course, like everything still stay away from those fluff words; don’t just try to lengthen it. I’m sure we’ve all had that experience in college or in high school where we’re writing an essay, and there wasn’t enough words left and so we just started to plug in words, like “very” and things like that. But on a résumé or even a Curriculum Vitae, that’s not the things you want to put in there.

But in the Curriculum Vitae you do want to have a summary of all your educational and academic

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 18 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés backgrounds, any teaching or research experience you’ve had, publications, presentations, awards, honors, affiliations, pretty much describing every part that’s relevant in there, and so if you’re working on one of those it’s okay that it’s more lengthy, because it is supposed to more length.

I think something else is really focusing on making your résumé right for that employer, things you can do is go into the employer’s website, or checking out the job description, checking out other job descriptions to really understand what it is that the employer is looking at, and tailoring your résumé to that. As Stephen said already, having that copy of a digital résumé that’s more plain text, and so that works better when you’re going to online websites, and using those keywords that are used in the industry, maybe not just looking at job descriptions for that job, or for that employer, but checking out job descriptions in that whole field, seeing what key words are often used. Because if you can understand the industry, then you can understand how to tailor your résumé to best fit that industry.

I think the last part I’d really like to say is you just always work on keeping it short and focusing on the concise résumé. Is there anything else you’d like to add, Stephen, before we talk to people some more?

Stephen Pandov Well, I think that you definitely have covered pretty much everything. I just would like to, before we begin talking to people, if that’s okay with you and Billy, I just want to go over a really neat thing here that I found that lists seven tips for a résumé that some of you may have seen, but I still would like to go over them and we’ll summarize what it is that some things that Trae, some things that I have already gone over.

So tip number one, definitely do your spell check. It’s very important to submit a résumé that makes you look competent in writing, as well as everything else that you say that you have in your résumé , all your skills and qualifications.

Number two don’t keep your résumé too long, and also don’t make it too short, don’t miss out on important information but don’t write pages and pages of it as well. And I could use that not too long tip, because sometimes I will go on and on and on, and Trae will kind of nudge me like okay, it’s time for other things, okay.

Number three, don’t forget the format, stuff that we talked about it does count, it’s important to have two

Number four, keywords are really important and that is something Trae talked about, use the job description, the job description is really your best friend, because it basically tells you what it is that they want. For example, if you’re applying for a daily living skills instructor, it might say there that they expect you to do some personal hall management, so put in your résumé if you taught anything like that, just put did some personal hall management teaching, or however you want to phrase but use those words, it’s really important, they will look for those words, and it will be good for you if they can find them in your résumé.

Number five, include the basics, that would be including the sections like objective, education history, employment experience, more than anything your contact information has to be there, and it’s really helpful when it’s correct. I once submitted a résumé with a phone number that had been disconnected already and that didn’t go so well, I didn’t get an interview for that job. Because if they called, I just didn’t know about it.

Number six, have multiple versions. Trae talked about that as well. Make sure that you have a résumé that describes every position for which it can fit. You know you may be applying for a teacher but you may also be able to work as a counselor because of your qualifications and so on and so forth. So make sure that you have a version for each position for which you fit.

Number seven make sure that your résumé is available and viewable. As I said previously, if folks don’t know you exist then it’s really hard for them to give you a chance. So make sure that your résumé or your Bio, whatever your CV is someplace where employers can find it.

That is about it for me. I don’t think I have anything else, Trae?

Trae Shaw I think one last thing that I’d like to touch on is just sometimes when people don’t have as much work experience that’s when your résumé could be a little lengthier and I think too that it’s important that you make sure that you hit on all the points they’re looking for, I can kind of tell you from past experience when I first started applying for a lot of jobs, I had been working as a substitute teacher, and I kind of left that

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 22 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés more vague when I wrote down that I was a substitute teacher, because in my head, I figured you know everyone knows what a substitute teacher does, right, but it’s important to really touch on the strong points, when I went and I got some feedback and updated my résumé more, I wrote in there that I had taught all different subjects ranging from history to German, and that I had taught a variety of different ages, from the ages of 5 up to 18 as a substitute teacher. And I wrote that I had written lesson plans as well as followed lesson plans written by other people. And all those things were things that I hadn’t included because I figured that people knew what a substitute teacher did. But it’s important not to expect them to know, the employer, what it is you’ve done. It’s your job to sell yourself as best as possible.

Stephen Pandov One thing that I saw recently on a job description, Trae, was no assumptions will be made about your qualifications and about the things, you know the work experiences that you’ve had, I’m not sure how the rest of it was phrased, but no assumptions will be made. In other words, if you don’t put in your résumé in some concise manner as we mentioned, they will not know you’ve done it, and they will not give you the credit for that when you’re applying for the position.

Trae Shaw And I think it’s a great point, I definitely appreciate the honesty of that employer, because that’s what they’re all really thinking, and that’s how they’re probably going to treat it, but if they don’t tell you that, you need to know that that is what they’re aim is and what they’re doing.

Stephen Pandov That’s right.

Billy Brookshire You guys ready for questions?

Trae Shaw I think we are, and I’d like you all to know that Stephen and Trae, we’ve decided that whoever asks the best question, we’re going to give you the opportunity to send in your résumé to Stephen and we’ll both take a look at it, and see if we can give you any feedback.

Stephen Pandov And we’ll even do spell check and reality check, we’ll try to suggest things that you can do with the résumé. If you specify so in your email, we’ll even go ahead and make the changes for you. I don’t know what will qualify as the best question, but if you guys feel like sending over a résumé when this is over, Trae and I will take a look at it, and we will make sure that it’s looking good, and hopefully someday get you a job, that you may be looking for. So other than that, if you have any questions, I’m ready to go on with that part of the seminar as well.

Trae Shaw Yes, and we’ll leave both of our emails with you after this.

Stephen Pandov But I’m a little quicker at answering email that Trae does.

Trae Shaw He just doesn’t get as many as me.

Billy Brookshire Now folks, how can you beat a deal like that? I can hear the questions already beginning roar in. I’m going to open up the microphone for questions in just a little while, but first we’ve got a couple of questions in the public chat room, you guys, that I thought I’d bring up.

The first one is from Emily and Emily says she hasn’t worked for about ten years. She’s been participating in an online degree program, but she’s stayed active in a lot of volunteer work for nonprofits like Board Secretary for her local YMCA. Her question is and I think you’ve covered this a little bit, Trae, but you might want to do it in a more – more specifics is where exactly do you put that kind of information on your résumé?

Trae Shaw Well, first, Emily, I’d like to congratulate you for working on bettering yourself by taking that online degree program. I understand where you’re coming from with the idea that you’ve been out of work for ten years.

I would first urge you to keep on any relevant work history, keep that on your résumé, it’s been more than ten years, but if it’s relevant to the industry, keep it on there, keeping in mind what I talked about earlier, but making sure that your job description is up to date with the words, and things that the industry is using, but in a situation like yours where you’ve had the strong volunteer experiences that probably have a lot of transferrable skills that go into what you’re going to be looking at for a job, I would just keep them all in the same part. Don’t separate them out, because you want to show to the employer that the experiences weren’t learned weren’t experiences exclusive to volunteering; they were experiences that really give you work experience and make you a qualified applicant.

Stephen Pandov And Emily, I just want to add, this is Stephen. Work is work, it’s much better when it’s paid, but also it can be a very good thing to do as a volunteer, but if your section is titled Work History, then just go ahead and put that in there, and you know if at some point it comes up and they ask you was that employment, paid employment, or was it volunteer work, then you can go ahead and disclose. But until then work is work, and so is the experience that you’ve had and

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 27 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés the duties that you’ve had to do, so go ahead and keep that in your résumé for sure. Billy Brookshire Okay, guys, the second question in the chat room, then I’ll open up the microphone comes from Vicky. She says you guys use the term “reality check”, and I can’t remember Stephen it might have been you, I can’t remember. But what are you talking about when you’re talking about a reality check?

Stephen Pandov Vicky, this is Stephen, what I’m talking about is really a little bit of flare words. Spell check will give you the computerized version of the spell check, okay. That is when I spoke about the word, w-i-t-h, with, versus w-i-t-h-e, which is also pronounced with, but it means something else. I think it’s a part of leaf that is on a tree or something like that, it’s a really fancy word only used in poetry apparently.

Anyhow, the reality check is when your friend looks at your résumé and says okay man; I think you mean to say with, w-i-t-h, the computer may not recognize that you mean to use a different word. So for example if you put speaker instead of speak, the computer will not correct you, because speaker is correctly spelled. Sometimes it will give you a grammatical error sort of thing, consider revising, but it will not correct it until

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 28 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés you get the reality check from – in other words, from a person who can distinguish between what you’re trying to say and whether it’s correctly spelled. So that’s what I meant when I said reality check.

Trae Shaw And this is Trae, I think a big part of reality check too is you have someone that knows your work history along with you, a friend or a colleague that’s helping you with your résumé, it’s important you know, I often make the joke here at Criss Cole that I’m going to apply for a management position, because I have three of supervisory experience. But if I actually put down that I had management experience on my résumé, you know that would probably come back to bite me, because I don’t think three days really is what they’re for when they say management experience.

Stephen Pandov So reality check basically means that when the person goes over a résumé and catches a spelling error, will also tell you hey, I think that you’re exaggerating a little bit, or I think you’re being a little too modest, both qualities are not good if you’re looking for employment. If you’re exaggerating, it’s going to come back and they will find out some way or another that yes you do have three days of

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 29 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés supervising experience, however, that doesn’t really amount to management experience. At the same time, if you omit to mention something well, you’re being too modest and now you didn’t get the credit. So that is the reality check that your friend can give you.

Trae Shaw You want to sell yourself big, but don’t lie.

Stephen Pandov No, not a good idea.

Billy Brookshire Good advice you guys. And I’m going open the microphone up now. One thing, I told you I’d send you some cold questions, I think I’m going to save those to the end of the broadcast, and let you guys get your questions out. Okay and also folks, Emily sent back a message, she says, thank you very much, because I was trying to decide whether to separate it into paid work and unpaid sections, but now I’ll keep them together, when she was talking about her nonprofit work.

Okay here comes the microphone, it’s open folks, so anything you want to ask.

David Green Hi this is David Green. Is it necessary to state on the Résumés that we are visually impaired?

Stephen Pandov This is Stephen; I have never seen anybody state that on their résumé. I probably would not. I cannot see a reason to put that on a résumé. You know disclosure is another topic on which we’ve love to do a webinar some day with Billy, whether to disclose that we’ll visually impaired or not before while we’re applying for employment. But I personally have never seen it, and I don’t see the need to put that in your résumé.

Trae Shaw This is Trae and I just sound resoundingly absolutely not. I think that your blindness or your visual impairedness has nothing to do with how you – I mean, it’s not your work experience. You want to focus on the things that you’ve done and the work that you’ve done and unless your work experience is working for the NFB or the ACB or something like that, then it really doesn’t have a place in there.

Billy Brookshire Thanks you guys, before we get onto the next question, I just want to call to your attention our next webinar, this is a good time for advertisement, folks.

Kelsey Thompson will be joining us from the Lighthouse in Chicago, and one of her topics is going to be disclosing disability, so you might want to clue into that one if you have issues related to that. Okay, microphone open for questions.

Richard Okay, I may be dating myself a little bit, this may be a relevant question and that is one of you gentlemen mentioned something about the computer version of the résumé, versus the printed version of the résumé. Now, here’s the question, is it important to make sure that you have maybe a different bond of paper for instance, a nicer quality type of paper that you might print the résumé on, and how is it – what is the etiquette in terms of when you bring a résumé or if you bring anything with you into an interview, should it be and this might sound like a silly question, should it be folded and in an envelope or should it be in a flat envelope, like one of the larger envelopes, the size of the you know 11-1/2 by 8 or whatever, just curious about that information.

Stephen Pandov Richard, thank you for the question, this is Stephen, and I’ll take it Billy. Richard, I don’t think you’re dating yourself, it’s nice to have nicer quality paper, it won’t hurt if it’s just regular paper, I’ve never really bothered

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 32 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés with that, just you know regular paper, of course I don’t want any smudges on it, or dropping water on it or anything like that. You don’t want to fold your résumé and put it in an envelope. You don’t want to give it to them in an envelope. The best thing, the way I do it, and according to what I’ve read and seen as information available, but what I usually do when I walk into an interview room, you know usually they’ll ask you to tell them a little bit about yourself, and that would be a good moment to say, yes, sure, I’d be glad to tell you about myself, and as a matter of fact, here’s my résumé if you’d like to take one more look at it. And you just kind of place it on the table somewhere in front of the person who is asking for it, or just hand it over to them, they’ll reach over and they’ll take it from you. But your résumé doesn’t need to be in an envelope when you’re handing it over and doesn’t need to be folded.

Trae Shaw This is Trae and whenever I apply for a job, I like to send over a cover letter attached with my résumé when I first apply for the job. And then if I’m called in for an interview, especially if I don’t know if it’s going to be just an interview with one person or if it’s going to be a panel interview or that type of thing. So that’s why I usually bring in three copies of my résumé, and as Stephen was saying on nicer paper that always

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 33 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés can be a plus, and then even bring in a copy of that cover letter, because the other people on the panel, might not have seen your cover letter when you originally sent it over to your potential employer.

Billy Brookshire Thanks you guys, notice there’s lots of activity in the chat room related to the disclosure question and thanks for the sharing back and forth folks and for all of you, come back to our next webinar, I’d love to have you there to share some of these questions with Kelsey.

But back to the matter here at hand on Résumés. Before I open the microphone again for questions, we’ve got one here from Julane you guys who said she’s applied for a lot of federal jobs. And in the federal jobs they want you to go on and on and on, and any advice you’d give her to handle that situation?

Stephen Pandov Federal jobs as far as what agencies are we talking about more or less. I don’t know if she lists that.

Billy Brookshire She does, let me get up here and read them again. VA, Federal Government Social Security.

Stephen Pandov Many of those jobs require you to answer a set of questions or they’re not so much questions, they’re more like statements and you have to write about

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 35 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés your experience related to these positions that you’re applying for. However, that’s going on and on and on in your résumé I don’t think, but I could be wrong. When applying for a federal position it’s important to remember that every time there’s a government job that we’re talking about or state, there’s going to be a lot of paperwork associated. The application process will be a little bit lengthier, so you know keep that in mind. But I don’t think that the résumé length and what you put in there changes.

Trae Shaw Yes, this is Trae. What I think is important here is to diverge that idea of your application and the résumé. Your application absolutely when you’re applying for jobs in the Federal Government and a lot of times State Government jobs like Stephen and I have, they do ask you to report every job that you’ve ever had, and so in that case you do need to put in everything, but your résumé doesn’t have to reflect that idea of putting on everything, you can just include in the résumé your relevant experience, but still put in your application those past jobs just because they’re asking for them.

Billy Brookshire Great info you guys, open the microphone up for questions, folks, here it comes.

Alan Dicey Good morning, appreciate the seminar. My name is Alan Disey I’m in Florida, talking about dating yourself on your résumé, if I was to put my last – my first employer which took up 25 years of my adult life, it would definitely date myself because it would be 1966 when I began, and we know there is such a thing as age discrimination. Are you saying to leave those 25 years of employment out of my résumé?

Trae Shaw I would say in a case like yours Alan, it’s more important to include that because you were there 25 years. I think it’s more important to focus on the idea of you as a stable worker that it really will show a lot to them that you have a commitment to the places that you work.

Billy Brookshire Anything to add Stephen?

Stephen Pandov I definitely agree with that. It’s important to focus on these things and to distinguish, you know there are time when you will want to list you know your employment, experience, and the fact that you’ve lasted at one job for 25 years is only likely to help you, and Alan, I don’t think I’ve done anything for 25 years,

Trae Shaw What I’d like to point out is all of these ideas that we’ve given you and these recommendations, there are going to be times like yours, Alan, where you know it just makes more sense to go the other way, because everyone’s experience is going to be a little bit different, and so sometimes there’s good reasons like yours to kind of go the other way.

Billy Brookshire Got a question coming in from the chat room you guys, and this is from Patricia. She works with transition students in a community rehabilitation program, and she says they have absolutely no work history, and that the transferrable skills are virtually nil, what would be your suggestions for them in compiling a résumé.

Trae Shaw Well, the first thing I’d like to point out that this is something that we have that goes on here to Criss Cole too, because our agencies, the division of our agency that we work under, the VR Program where it’s people from the age of 18 and forever, and so we’ve had people come in before, the younger kids

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 39 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés too, and I think when you deal with this issue, that’s when volunteerism is very important. If they can get involved in volunteering program, so that they do get some skills to add on there to the résumé. Because it’s going to be important to have things to put on there.

Stephen Pandov Correct, and I agree with Trae, Patricia, it’s tough sometimes when there’s nothing to put on the résumé, frankly that’s just what it comes down to, there’s really not much to put in there. But the way – one of the remedies for this problem is to volunteer, to find some opportunities, things for them to get involved in and to do so they can put something on their résumé. It’s always a good idea to have a shell of a résumé, and then you kind of start filling things out as they happen, okay, with the different headings, contact information of course would be there, objective, and so will the other ones, the education, and work history, and you’ve got to start filling in the blanks as things happen. But yes, I agree with you that sometimes there just isn’t anything that you can put in the résumé because, or anything because of their age, you know they’re just so young, they haven’t done anything.

Billy Brookshire

Open the microphone once again for questions, folks.

Jean Hi, good morning, I’m really enjoying this seminar. My question is for, and this is going to age me also, when used to make my Résumés out before my sight loss, you had to put the date you left a job and a date that you know – how long you – like the dates, the month, I mean really major details. You don’t have to do that anymore? And also when it comes to – how would you go about, I was a stay at home mom at the very beginning and I was proud of that. Well some places sort of look down on that. So is it okay to still put something like that in.

Billy Brookshire Thanks Jeannie, what do you think guys?

Stephen Pandov Well, I’m going to answer the first part of your question as far as the dates. Personally when I applied for employment I would consider again, whether my work experience is relevant to what I’m applying for, whether it can help me retain that – you know get that job, as Trae said he used to list his Library Assistant, is that what it was?

Trae Shaw

Stephen Pandov Library Assistant position and he doesn’t anymore, because there’s just no need for it. So list the jobs that are relevant and yes, go ahead and put the dates if we’re talking about jobs that have happened in the last 10, 15 years. Or if we’re talking about employment like in Richard’s case which was for 25 years in one position. So yes, definitely go ahead and put a start and end date rather on employment.

Trae Shaw As for you talking about putting being a stay at mom on your résumé, I applaud you for that, I think it’s a lot of work and I’m sure you did a great job at it, but unless you’re looking for positions that are more in child care or something like that, and in that case I still – I wouldn’t put it down under the work history, I’d put it down more in a skills area, of the skills that you acquired while being a stay at home mom. But I wouldn’t list it with the jobs.

Billy Brookshire Good advice guys. And our time here folks is almost gone. I’ve got one more question from the chat room, I’m going to put up and then we’ll see who the winning questioner was.

The last question here, this comes from John. He says do you need to send a cover letter with every résumé?

Trae Shaw I think it’s important to add a cover letter along with your résumé, because it’s another point where you can sell yourself. It’s a place where you can write all the good things about yourself and you can even tie in things from the job description, say you know I saw this position where you’re looking for X, Y and Z and then plug in a sentence about your skills that relate to that X, Y and Z. And so I think it’s an extra tidbit to allow yourself on there, and maybe even a better hope to grab them in when they’re looking at your résumé.

Stephen Pandov I would definitely agree with that. It’s also – it’s another way to give them some more information about you, another way for you to stand out a little bit more and sending a cover letter with the Résumés is viewed as a good practice during the employment- seeking process. So I definitely agree with that, yes, I encourage you to send a cover letter with each one of your Résumés.

Trae Shaw And what’s important with that cover letter is just like the résumé. You want to tailor it for each job that you’re applying for.

Stephen Pandov That’s right.

Billy Brookshire All right, guys thank you. And while our presenters consult here folks about the question, I’m going to send the first poll question, here it comes.

Okay, gentlemen you have now conferred, do you have an answer to the best questioner of the day?

Trae Shaw Billy, yes we do, I wish we had some sound effects here.

Stephen Pandov And our favorite question came from Emily. I would like to say that the rest of them are just as good, and we were able to share a lot of information based on those questions while answering, but Emily I loved your question about whether you should include your volunteer experience and whether you should divide it into different sections, we answered that with yes you

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 45 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés should, and no you shouldn’t divide it into different sections. We thank you for your question, and I would like to at this point give you my email address, is that how we do this? So my email is [email protected], so it’s [email protected]. Go ahead and shoot me your résumé Emily and I’d love to see what I can do with Trae to help you put these things in that employment history section, of course, if you would like us to do that.

Trae Shaw And for both Stephen and I, I think we’d really like to thank all of you for joining us in this seminar and asking some great questions.

Billy Brookshire Emily sent back a resounding “Yeah!” you guys. I want to remind you folks that this seminar like all the seminars we do here at seminars@hadley are archived on our website. You can access them on a link on our opening page, it says “access past seminars”, click on that it will take you all to past seminars. It takes about two to three days after the seminar folks to get them up on the web. So if you listen to this one again, and I expect a lot of you are going to, then wait a couple of days for it to get up on the web, and you can check it out.

While you’re in past seminars, check out a couple of things, another couple of seminars would be great for you to check out, the first that comes to mind is one that was done by Rosy Manning, also in the Department here at Criss Cole Rehabilitation Center called “The Secrets of Successful Interviews,” a good companion to the presentation that Stephen and Trae just gave.

And another interview that we probably don’t get enough hits off of folks, but it is I just an excellent presentation, our President, Chuck Young at one point interview Rick Bowls who wrote the book What Color is Your Parachute, if you into job search Rick Bowls really has lots of good answers and this interview may be the best one I’ve heard with Rick Bowls, Richard Bowls. I guess I shouldn’t be using common name. So at any rate check it out, great presentations, both of them.

As far as courses, I want to remind you that the Foresight Center for Entrepreneurship is now open. Tom Babinski and friends are adding courses literally, almost constantly folks, they just added a half dozen and are sprucing up some other courses as well, and more courses are being prepared all the time, so check into that.

Also folks Hadley has 15 business and careers courses, so by all means get into our course listing and check out those courses, and specifically check out one called Finding Employment, which also talks about Résumés. It’s a good basic ground.

Trae and Stephen have helped expand that knowledge there. To give you a little more current look at what’s going on with Résumés, and they’ve just done an incredible job, I sure do appreciate it you guys.

I want to thank you again and Trae and Stephen have already done this, for participating today, I want you to know we value your feedback. You can let us know your feedback about this presentation and others, and also give us any suggestions you have for future seminars. Just send a message to email to [email protected], that’s [email protected], boy we just love to get that feedback, so let us know what’s going on.

I’m going to hand the microphone back to Stephen and Trae for any final words they might have for your guys, any final words you want to give the participants, folks?

Stephen Pandov Yes, this is Stephen; I want to thank you guys for checking us out today. I want to thank you Billy, you and Hadley; you guys do a great job. And I want to encourage you to keep applying for employment, if that’s what you’re doing currently, whether you have a job or not. Maybe you have a job and you’re looking for a better one, maybe you just don’t have employment. But keep applying, a lot of folks, it has nothing to do really when you apply with being blind or not, a lot of people have applied for as many as you know 200, 300 positions. At one point when I was applying for employment, I had certainly applied somewhere upwards of like 80 or 90, possibly even 100 positions. I didn’t get interviewed for each position that I applied for. But I want to encourage you to work on your Résumés, work on your cover letters, make them look better, I’m sure that eventually somebody is going to – your résumé will grab employer’s attention and you will get the interviews that you want. So I just encourage you to continue doing what you’re doing guys. And thanks for coming today to check us out.

Trae Shaw The last thing that me, Trae, that I would like to say is first off, I would recommend the seminar, the next one over disclosing your blindness, that’s a topic they’re

©2011 The Hadley School for the Blind Page 49 of 53 2011-09-22-Writing Attention Getting Résumés going to cover. I think that’s a great piece that we work on here at Criss Cole with people, that some people struggle with and it’s a good idea to kind of understand the pros and cons of disclosing at different times in the job seeking process. I encourage everyone. I may be preaching to the choir, since you’re all logged in for a seminar at Hadley. But I do think it’s important to take advantage of the courses that Hadley has, I’m currently enrolled in two courses myself, and they have great things there.

And the last thing I’d like to point out is someone posted Stephen’s email address on the chat and his name Stephen is with a “ph”, not a “v”. And so just make sure it’s s-t-e-p-h-e-n. And thank you again.

Stephen Pandov And Billy I don’t know if you have a way of posting my email for the folks to see, but again [email protected].

Billy Brookshire And Connie no need to be sorry, we just appreciate your help. For all of you, again we thank you for attending today. I’m not going to send the last poll question, unless you guys are just eager for other poll questions, but I appreciate all those you’ve participated in the last one.

Before I forget, before I sign off, I do need to mention some other things and I’ll be quick about this. In October, we’ve got three more webinars coming up, I mentioned the first, on the 6th of October at 10:00 a.m., once again, and that will be Kelsey Thompson speaking to you from the Lighthouse of Houston. Her topic is going to be Blindness on the Job, one of the things she is going to talk about is self-disclosure. She also will be talking about how to advocate for yourself in case you need to on the job.

On October the 11th, exactly 10 years and one month after 9/11, we have a presenter, Michael Hinkson is going to be here and Michael was in the Twin Towers when that happened with his dog guide, Rosell, he’ll tell his story and Rosell’s story in a presentation called Thunder Dog, named after Mac’s new book, so be sure to check in on that one.

And finally to close out the month, we’ve got another excellent presentation folks by Dr. Kai Eldred, who is going to talk to you about cortical visual impairment. I hope you guys can tune in to a whole lot of these things, for all of you. Thanks a million. Thanks a million for turning up and checking out our presentation. And to Stephen and Trae, you guys did an absolutely wonderful job.

Trae Shaw Thank you Billy.

Billy Brookshire Thanks a lot you guys, see you next time folks. Have a great weekend.

John Billy, I wonder if you’d be able to email me Stephen’s address.

Billy Brookshire John, I can do that, I’ll send it on to you and again for those of you listening in, it’s [email protected]. Thanks John, glad to see you’re here.

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