#85 – Make Your Resume Shine: Learn the Latest Strategies to Stand Out in Today’s Job Market | Empowerment & Career Advice

[00:00:00] Loree Philip: Hi, and welcome to Daring to Leap. I'm your host, Loree Philip. Are you curious about what it takes to stand out in the competitive 2024 job market? Stick around as our expert guest, Steph Cartwright, shares innovative job search strategies and how you can transform your resume into an attention grabbing masterpiece.

[00:00:24] Loree Philip: Let's dive in.

[00:00:26] Loree Philip: Steph is a job search strategist, certified resume writer, and the solopreneur behind Off the clock resumes. Since 2014, she's helped hundreds of job seekers at all career levels get unstuck and get a foot in the door at the companies they'd love to work for with their resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and job search plans.

[00:00:52] Loree Philip: Welcome to the show, Steph. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you here. [00:01:00] This is such a timely topic, and I think it probably always is, and so it's good business to be in. But I'm excited to jump in on the topic of resumes, and how do we get our foot in the door when we're looking for a new position or role at a at a but before we get started with that, I'd love to hear a bit about you.

[00:01:18] Loree Philip: And so what, what were you doing before you decided to start a business and do resumes and, and job search support for other people?

[00:01:29] Steph Cartwright: I love. Sharing that I coined the phrase, I was a serial job seeker where I did not have a career path. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my career. I had bounced from some customer service, hospitality, sales type jobs got into a law firm as a clerk.

[00:01:51] Steph Cartwright: And I just, I didn't find anything I enjoyed about any of the jobs that I held. I was finishing up a two year degree and trying to [00:02:00] decide if I wanted to go to college, even though I didn't know what I wanted to do to get a four year degree. And so I started freelance writing. I knew I loved writing. I didn't have a whole lot of support as far as how to make it a career unless I wanted to be in technical writing or go into teaching.

[00:02:20] Steph Cartwright: Neither of those I really wanted to do at the time. And so I just started trying a little bit of everything. I did blogging, I did some website creation, I did social media, I even edited a manuscript for a professor who was publishing a book and fell into resume writing completely by accident. And fell in love with it.

[00:02:41] Steph Cartwright: I don't know what it was about writing resumes that felt very formulaic to me and it just clicked in my head and I was doing well for having absolutely no background in HR and having really no experience in resume writing before. My resumes were working [00:03:00] for my clients. And so I sought out other organizations, learned as much as I could from other career service professionals and just absolutely fell in love with it and stuck with it.

[00:03:11] Steph Cartwright: I mean, I've almost been doing this 10 years now. I'm really excited about that this year.

[00:03:16] Loree Philip: Congratulations, Steph, that 10 years is a huge milestone. And I'm just over here in awe because I think what we forget sometimes that everybody. Loves different things. And the idea of writing, editing, reviewing a resume is not that exciting to me.

[00:03:37] Loree Philip: And I think for most people. And so it's like, there's this point where it sometimes it's surprising where it's like, okay, that's your zone of genius. And so we're here today to learn from you and everything that you've kind of. Pulled together over the last 10 years and I know you've really worked into it You've got you know you [00:04:00] follow you go to all the conferences and learn about all the latest and greatest and resume writing and all of that stuff and so What I mentioned to you earlier before we jumped into this conversation is that I've been hearing from a lot of listeners, clients, potential clients, that they're really feeling stuck right now with their resumes.

[00:04:26] Loree Philip: And so usually it's somebody who's thinking about switching positions or trying to go find something else, or maybe that they, they do need to go, like they got laid off or something like that. And they're just not able to take their resume and get moved from application to actual interview. And something is getting lost in the shuffle.

[00:04:51] Loree Philip: And so I'm hoping that we can have a conversation today around. What do we need to be looking at when we pull our resume [00:05:00] together to help get us to that next step? So let's start with that, because there's a ton. I could probably ask you a zillion questions today. Let's start with that. How are people Making it through that first cut in the system, right?

[00:05:15] Loree Philip: Because it's typically a system that looks at it and cuts out before it even gets to a person to review.

[00:05:22] Steph Cartwright: A common misconception is that you're disqualified or eliminated from consideration before even having your resume seen by a recruiter because of your resume, and that's not true. Oh, great.

[00:05:35] Steph Cartwright: Interesting. Tracking systems. Oh yes. So the way applicant tracking systems work is the recruiter has to go in and set screening questions. Those are the questions in the application itself, and they can determine if they're knockout questions, meaning if they're looking for someone with over five years of experience in a particular.

[00:05:57] Steph Cartwright: And you go in and say two to three [00:06:00] years of experience, it's going to knock you out of consideration without even looking at your resume because of those questions, it is never the resume that gets you automatically disqualified or the auto rejection email.

[00:06:12] Loree Philip: Oh, so it's the qualification questions that will do that.

[00:06:17] Loree Philip: Interesting, because I had heard, around because there are certain keywords and things that the system is also looking for, but in order to narrow it down. To get to a reasonable number of interviews for an HR person to review, is that a follow up screening from the questioning screening? So,

[00:06:44] Steph Cartwright: let's say you've answered all of the application questions correctly.

[00:06:48] Steph Cartwright: All of the knockout questions, you have answered the way that the recruiter wants you to answer them to be qualified. Bye bye. Then that ATS is basically a digital filing cabinet. [00:07:00] So all of those applications are in one large search results list. So what recruiters will do is they'll go in and they'll use search sort or filters to narrow down those applicants.

[00:07:12] Steph Cartwright: So they're going to be looking at, okay, what are the top qualifications I need for this role? Is it a degree? Is it an area of expertise? Is it a certification? That will likely be the first element that narrows down applicants. So if it says on the job posting that they want you to have, eight years of experience in accounting and you don't have the word accounting anywhere in your resume, that's going to knock you out of consideration right away because, well, let me clarify.

[00:07:39] Steph Cartwright: It doesn't knock you out of consideration. It removes you from the search sort filter results list. Your resume is still in the system, but The recruiter is no longer going to see it in the search results. And once that list gets narrowed down enough, they're going to start looking resume, resume, application, application, and making [00:08:00] decisions for interviews at that point.

[00:08:02] Steph Cartwright: So your resume is going to determine where you stand on that results list. Not necessarily whether or not you're instantly rejected or, eliminated With that first auto rejection email that a lot of people get really frustrated with.

[00:08:20] Loree Philip: Yeah, that's good information because it just like anything it's, there's a lot of variables, right?

[00:08:26] Loree Philip: And so, and it's all good information for us to be aware of. What do you advise to your clients to do what they can to ensure they can get through the question screening, the filtering, the to get down into that selection where they actually get a shot for somebody to take a look at their resume and make a decision.

[00:08:53] Steph Cartwright: My first thought is if you can't. Answer an application question to [00:09:00] demonstrate your qualification in alignment with what is listed in the job posting. So again, it comes down to years of experience, like they're looking for five years plus, and you have three to four years. It's important to take your job search off of the application and go to the application.

[00:09:15] Steph Cartwright: On LinkedIn or go to the company website and try to get in touch with someone in the hiring department to get basically bypassed around the ATS and say, I'm really interested in this role. I'm just missing 1 year of experience. I applied. I bet you haven't seen my application yet because of this application question, but X, Y, and Z why I'm interested.

[00:09:37] Steph Cartwright: So. Often, there is an extra step that needs to be taken if you're missing one of the requirements or you're just not quite there. Now, let's say you have no issue with those application questions and it's just a matter of getting your resume seen once you've applied. You really need to pay close attention to what's listed in the job posting because that is what is guiding.

[00:09:59] Steph Cartwright: The [00:10:00] back end of ATS. So you don't need to have every word verbatim, but look for number one, the top, I don't know, five to six functional job related skills they're looking for. Whether that's again, project management, project planning, scheduling, like those are the words you want to look for and make sure they're in your resume.

[00:10:20] Steph Cartwright: And then I always say what helps you stand out from other qualified applicants. is the value you bring, the outcomes you can generate. So my secret sauce is essentially find the goals of the role in the job posting. These will often be hidden statements in that job paragraph summary at the top of the job posting or even in the duties and qualifications, or not the qualifications, but the duties and responsibilities section.

[00:10:47] Steph Cartwright: And these are always outcomes. They're not responsibilities. They're not tasks. They're outcomes, whether that's improving efficiency or growing teams or driving profitability, [00:11:00] these are outcomes. And if you can focus your resume on how you've achieved similar outcomes in the past, that is what is going to make you stand out from other applicants the right ways.

[00:11:10] Loree Philip: Hmm. Yeah. Because in your experience, Do you see people just putting just kind of what they do, like their tasks that they've done, the basics of their experience, but they're not talking about results. And I think the common,

[00:11:31] Steph Cartwright: the common mistake is they think I just need everything in the job posting to be found in my resume.

[00:11:36] Steph Cartwright: So they're looking at those duties, responsibilities, those what, what, They want me to do day to day, and they're copying and pasting that into their resume, and it's not helping, it's not making a difference, because that's not what the recruiter's mindset, or even the hiring decision maker's mindset is when they're looking at your resume.

[00:11:53] Steph Cartwright: It's, okay, I already know you're qualified, you've gotten to this point. Now, why should I hire you, or why should I interview [00:12:00] you over someone else? Those are the details that help them make that decision very quickly.

[00:12:05] Loree Philip: Yeah, that it makes so much sense stuff, but it in the heat of the moment, we're preparing our resume and it's like, I just want to get through to a person. So it's, it's are these layers it's like putting in. The right keywords, but not just pasting it all in to get through to a person, and that person reads it and sees the results and the differentiation you have that you can bring to the position.

[00:12:33] Loree Philip: I want to go back to what you said earlier about the qualifying questions and the extra step, and I appreciate this perspective because it can seem daunting to put your resume out there and just hope that it's going to get through the system and you're going to talk to a person. And it is a lot better if you have a contact over there, if [00:13:00] somebody, if you've networked with people in that organization, things like that, because, it's a lot better if you have a contact over there, if, I sometimes we get caught up in like, it's a rejection of you when your resume doesn't get through when, in fact, it's just a representation of some words on a piece of paper and it isn't until and I'm never, it's never really a rejection of you, but it isn't until you get to a person and you have a conversation with them where you feel like you could really give your all to the process and get, Get have them have a sense of who you are and how you can bring value to the position and so little tips like this like okay, maybe you don't have all the qualifications, but at the end of the day, they're just choosing a barometer of parameters because it's useful and it doesn't mean that If you have four years instead of five years [00:14:00] experience that you're absolutely not qualified for the role, but taking that next step, have you seen people get results by going ahead and doing that and seeing if they can find a person that they can speak to to kind of get their foot in the door?

[00:14:17] Steph Cartwright: Absolutely. It is a long game, though, and you're rarely going to find the right person to talk to the first person you reach out to, and I hear often from job seekers are frustrated. They're like, you're saying get on LinkedIn and connect with employees. No one's connecting with me. No one's responding to my messages.

[00:14:37] Steph Cartwright: Well, if you're just reaching out to three people in the same department who aren't active on LinkedIn, yeah, you're not going to Be successful, but that's where you can get creative. I was actually just thinking about the comparison of you're on Facebook and you're asking your community group.

[00:14:55] Steph Cartwright: Do you have any recommendations for X, Y, and Z? I'm looking for someone to do this or this [00:15:00] at my house and you get a whole bunch of different recommendations. Maybe 1 or 2 of them. You can contact, And if you can't contact them, the person who commented and gave you that recommendation might be able to contact them on your behalf, or at least create an introduction.

[00:15:15] Steph Cartwright: It's the same when networking with, professionally within the companies that you want to work for. So you might try to reach out to a recruiter or someone in HR. They don't respond. Well, narrow your search down to employees who work in the department that you think you'd be working for, or who hold similar job titles to what you're targeting, and then ask them, Hey, I'm really interested in this role that's open or working for this department.

[00:15:40] Steph Cartwright: If a role comes open, who do you recommend I talk to? To find out more about this role or get my foot in the door, you have to expand your networking efforts to just trying to reach a recruiter or just trying to reach a hiring manager. You've got to think a little bit more big picture and be [00:16:00] persistent.

[00:16:00] Loree Philip: Yeah, I like this approach, Steph, because I have had people reach out to me in the past, especially when I was in the corporate environment, and it was more along the lines of trying to understand The role, a similar role within the company or get a sense of the culture, almost like an inter informational interview and having that discussion.

[00:16:24] Loree Philip: And even if that person has, they have 10 minutes to talk with you, you have their attention, you can ask them. For that next person to talk to, or who, who's the best person in applying some of the things that you recommended from there.

[00:16:40] Steph Cartwright: I think that what I'm finding is. Even like LinkedIn is making changes where you can't send customized connection requests to more than five people in a month.

[00:16:50] Steph Cartwright: So what that's doing is making it harder to get responses from people you're trying to connect with without upgrading to premium, which again, [00:17:00] it's a company. They're, they're trying to get people to subscribe, but. As far as figuring out how to start a conversation, maybe that's just engaging with them on LinkedIn seeing if they're active enough by responding to their comments on posts, or sharing something and tagging them, you think something that they might find interesting.

[00:17:18] Steph Cartwright: It's getting a little bit more strategic in how you spend your time in your job search, rather than scrolling through endless job boards and Throwing your resume out to anything you think might be a fit tailoring your resume can be very time consuming. So if your approach is a spray and pray, it won't be effective.

[00:17:39] Steph Cartwright: If your approach is to tailor and apply, it's also going to be time consuming. Getting your foot in the door sometimes goes beyond the application, and LinkedIn's a great tool for that, but it's not the only tool for that. So, trying to figure out how to get in front of the people who. Maybe they're not just in a specific company, but those who are in an [00:18:00] organization like a professional or trade association, they all work in the same industry, the same field, they might be able to help you get your foot in the door when you don't have 100 percent of the qualifications, or you're just really struggling to get your resume seen because of work history issues or major career changes, and you're struggling to Transfer or translate what you've done to what you want to do.

[00:18:27] Steph Cartwright: I think it's really important to bring the human element back into you. What has become such a digital job search.

[00:18:33] Loree Philip: Mm hmm. Yeah. And that's, and that, although it's an extra step and although it can feel, people might feel resistance to doing it because they're putting themselves out there, they're trying, they're.

[00:18:47] Loree Philip: Connecting with people they don't know, and it, it might feel a bit like cold calling in a sense or cold networking and, but at the same time, it [00:19:00] can be important to get to a person because of the, what you described, if it's just digital and it's, I mean, and, and there is a place for that, right?

[00:19:10] Loree Philip: People are applying with their resumes and getting interviews. What. In your experience, is when you look at your clients that are being successful and going through the process, what is it that you're noticing that they're doing or showing in their application that's making the difference? The biggest

[00:19:32] Steph Cartwright: difference is when we first learned to write a resume, we're told summarize what you can do, summarize your skills, summarize what you've done for past employers.

[00:19:42] Steph Cartwright: The problem is, With everybody doing that, and the competition's so high, it doesn't have the same effect that it did ten years ago. So, what is important is writing a resume that positions you as the best fit for the job that you [00:20:00] want, not the jobs that you've already had. So once you can change your mindset and how you approach your resume, it's not about what you've done.

[00:20:08] Steph Cartwright: It's about what you can do for the school. new employer that you're targeting. And when my clients work with me they're before resumes are very task based they're very outdated in appearance. You don't have to have a fancy flashy design to catch attention, but. To be able to guide the eye across the page with strategic elements in a document can be really helpful, but then also their content starts out very repetitive, managed this, managed that, led that, conducted this it's very bland.

[00:20:44] Steph Cartwright: Reading. So what I try to do with my clients is come up with, okay, let's look at these job postings. What do they need you to be able to accomplish for them? What are the top desired skills and abilities? Tell me stories about how you did [00:21:00] this. What company you did it for? How did you demonstrate the skill?

[00:21:03] Steph Cartwright: What may have resulted? And if the results are strong, measurable outcomes, those become the bullets. If they're more of a typical day to day, it goes into a, Job summary paragraph that is more important for that in depth read once they've scanned your resume and they're like, Oh yeah, this person's got a lot of achievements or just a lot of contributions that would make them valuable to the team.

[00:21:29] Steph Cartwright: Then they'll go in and read those more detailed paragraphs. And that approach has been so much more effective for my clients because it's a balanced approach with their resume. There, we're creating a resume that's going to get through ATS, give the recruiters and the first resume. human screeners, what they're looking for quickly in that initial skim.

[00:21:50] Steph Cartwright: And then we're giving them more in depth detail and context for the hiring decision maker or the person who's going to be reading that resume in more detail to differentiate [00:22:00] between applicants. It really is a balancing act.

[00:22:02] Loree Philip: Yeah, and I can see that because of you're, you're basically positioning it for the needs of different stakeholders, whether it's the system, the recruiter, the hiring manager, because everybody that needs to take a look at this is going to look at it with a different lens and a different set of requirements.

[00:22:24] Loree Philip: The, the old, the old, guidance was a one page resume or really short. What, what is the recommendation right now as far as length? Is it okay to have two pages? Does it depend on the role? What, what are your thoughts on that?

[00:22:45] Steph Cartwright: There's a couple different factors. I try to encourage my clients to have a two page resume.

[00:22:50] Steph Cartwright: And the reason is, number one, ATS looks at both frequency and placement of keywords. So having a two page resume and those [00:23:00] keywords sprinkled throughout can actually help you in those candidate search rankings. One other factor is that I like to think in terms of when it was common for it just to be a one page resume.

[00:23:16] Steph Cartwright: That was one person looking at resumes and making hiring decision. It wasn't ATS plus recruiter plus hiring decision maker. It was one person deciding. Okay, I'm gonna look through this two pages. That seems way too long, yeah. What points am I looking for? And then call in for an interview. But now there's the ATS.

[00:23:36] Steph Cartwright: There's also so much more competition, especially with remote workers now and that being so prolific that we just have so much more competition. So a job that maybe would attract a dozen applicants is now attracting hundreds of applicants. So If you have two one page resumes for the same job, they're probably going to look very similar, but if you have a two page resume [00:24:00] with context, with achievements, or even just, again, outcomes, I hate using the word achievements because so many people get hung up on this word.

[00:24:09] Steph Cartwright: Like, I don't have numbers. I don't have metrics. Any outcome, whether you have a metric or not, is going to help you. So when they're looking at these different resumes, a one page resume might not give them enough information to differentiate this person's value compared to this person with a two page resume and storytelling elements that really show the depth of their expertise.

[00:24:34] Steph Cartwright: Mm

[00:24:35] Loree Philip: hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I like this idea too of the storytelling, but I'm having a hard time thinking about how that looks because I'm so used to lead team of blah, blah, blah, to do X, Y, Z kind of description that you mentioned that we're kind of taught to do in our resume. What is the sentence? You know what I mean?

[00:24:58] Loree Philip: Like, how does the storytelling come [00:25:00] across in, in a bullet? So,

[00:25:03] Steph Cartwright: okay. Let's kind of brainstorm this. So you've got, you've led a team of five staff members in X, Y, and Z. What is the end goal of that X, Y, and Z? Is it to, Improve efficiency of operations are, are you leading this team to make improvements that are going to speed up operations and efficiency focusing on that element is.

[00:25:32] Steph Cartwright: Instead of the leading team, including hiring, managing and training. Team in whatever department, giving a little bit more context and again, focusing on specifically the outcomes, even in those paragraph summaries. So the team that you lead, what is their goal? What is your department's goal?

[00:25:54] Steph Cartwright: What are you trying to achieve for your clients or your organization and focusing on those elements now, [00:26:00] when I say storytelling elements in a bullet. So, let's say you improved efficiency. How did you do that? What skill sets did you use? What actions did you take? And then, if you need to give a little bit more context, why was it necessary?

[00:26:13] Steph Cartwright: What were the problems that was being caused before you made these efforts? Give some context as to before and after can be really helpful, or even just who was impacted. Giving context like that tells a little bit more than just simply, I improved processes. Well, which processes, who was impacted by these processes?

[00:26:36] Steph Cartwright: How much did you improve? What, what was the issue before compared to now? And that is the storytelling element that gives more context beyond just saying, I have a key skill in process improvement.

[00:26:50] Loree Philip: Yeah. Yeah. What, what it made me think of, Steph, is, When we're in an interview and how we're supposed to answer the questions [00:27:00] is sound similar to me about how you're recommending the resume writing, because when you're answering questions in an interview, context is so important, outcome is so important, like all of the stuff that you're saying, it's almost like we want to get to that interview, so we might as well just put it in the resume.

[00:27:23] Loree Philip: So that yes, some of that comes across,

[00:27:26] Steph Cartwright: I heard from recruiters that one of their frustrations is you're not giving enough information in the resume to allow for more in depth interview questions. They want to ask you more in depth interview questions. They want to find out the more of the context, but if you're not even giving them enough information, they're just asking you preliminary questions in the interview.

[00:27:49] Steph Cartwright: That's not helping them make those decision making. Decisions, if anything, it's probably what's causing these four or five, six rounds of interviews before someone's hired is because [00:28:00] the resume is not giving enough context and that's not the job seekers fault to not know that. I mean, it's, it's, you're not expected to know what's happening behind the scenes, but it is empowering to know what's happening behind the scenes and changing.

[00:28:15] Steph Cartwright: Your approach to address that. And like you said, it is very much an interview answer, but it's a snapshot in reverse. So instead of leading with the problem or the challenge, you're leading with the result, then talking about the outcome, then talking about the context of challenge. So it's that star par car formula, but in reverse,

[00:28:36] Loree Philip: in reverse.

[00:28:38] Loree Philip: Yeah, because the, the, the people that want to scan will scan the top and see the results. And the people that love to go in depth will can go a little bit deeper and then you have more room to sprinkle in all the keywords you're supposed to have in there based on the specific [00:29:00] tailored. Job that you're looking to do

[00:29:03] Steph Cartwright: and if you think in terms of how we read a document or just how we read, we lead read from top to bottom, left to right.

[00:29:10] Steph Cartwright: So if you're leading those bullets with the outcome. It's going to stand out in that skim because you're not forcing them to read through the line to find the results, the results right there, and they're like, Oh, that's a significant number. That's, that's a significant outcome that you were able to drive.

[00:29:29] Steph Cartwright: Let's, let's read more. You've got to kind of tease them and then give them more of the meat. And that's going to be a far more effective approach just from how human beings. So if you think in terms of the human element, it is actually going to help so much more than just focusing on ATS, just focusing on keywords because the recruiter is ultimately the one who is still seeing your resume and making those interview decisions.

[00:29:58] Loree Philip: I think that's an important point. [00:30:00] I think a lot of us understand the switch with ATS and the system reviewing kind of doing that initial, like, review before it gets to a person, and we might have over rotated on that and forgot that once it gets through there, a person is going to read it and, and to kind of go through that process.

[00:30:23] Loree Philip: What. Given that change and the current environment in hiring, what else are we missing stuff that we haven't talked about that you feel is important for job seekers to understand right now that may be feeling frustrated, they're they're qualified, but they can't seem to get to that, to that interview stage.

[00:30:45] Steph Cartwright: One of the biggest frustrations is they're so, job seekers can be so attached to their older experience. And they think if I list my [00:31:00] 25, 30 years of experience in detail on my resume, that's going to help me show more expertise than someone else. Unfortunately, that's not true. The case anymore. I spend more time explaining to my clients and helping them through the process of trimming down their resumes, because honestly, the last 10 years.

[00:31:22] Steph Cartwright: Are what holds the most weight to employers. So if you have a 30 plus year career or even a 15 plus year career, there's rarely even an executive level job posting looking for more than 15 years of experience in anything. So when you trim down your resume, what you're doing as you're telling employers, I'm a forward thinking professional, I am not.

[00:31:47] Steph Cartwright: Attached to outdated methodologies, outdated software, outdated best practices. I am a forward thinking, hit the ground running professional that you [00:32:00] want on your team because I'm going. The distance with you, what those extra years of experience are telling employers is look at my age, not my qualifications and look at how much money I probably want instead of what can I do for you?

[00:32:18] Steph Cartwright: Because I know that's a common correlation with years of experience on a resume. Resume and what that particular applicant might be wanting in a salary range, as at least from a hiring decision makers perspective. So it's really important to position yourself for the job and trim out the rest. Give them what they're looking for.

[00:32:37] Steph Cartwright: Trim out the rest.

[00:32:39] Loree Philip: Yeah, I could come across as somebody who's overqualified, right? But, they, they seem great, but we only need this and you don't, they don't even have a chance to, to get their foot in the door at that point. How do you recommend people do that? Say they've worked at several firms and some of that experience might be [00:33:00] relevant.

[00:33:00] Loree Philip: Is it, is it not, is it taking it off altogether or is it just really shortening it up? On the second page, so

[00:33:08] Steph Cartwright: what I've, I've done a couple of different approaches. Sometimes it'll be a really short paragraph summary of earlier experience includes, and I'm dropping position titles and company names. So if there's name dropping, that could be beneficial approach to it.

[00:33:24] Steph Cartwright: One of the effective approaches I've taken, depending on the client, I don't do this for everyone, is if they've got older experience that is really relevant or really strong achievements that aren't tied to specific best practices or technology, so it's not going to outdate them, what I'll do is I'll have that early need.

[00:33:44] Steph Cartwright: Experience highlights, and it might summarize the names of the titles and the companies. And then I'll maybe do two, three, four bullets max. And those bullets are just the achievements from that earlier experience. We're not including any dates. We're [00:34:00] just saying earlier experience highlights. And then here's a highlight.

[00:34:03] Steph Cartwright: If, if an employer or a interviewer wants to know more information, they'll dive into that with you in an interview. You're not necessarily keeping them from. valuable information on your resume, but it is going to show them that you have even more achievements beyond just what's on your resume. Again, your resume needs to be a snapshot, not a biography.

[00:34:25] Steph Cartwright: So if you keep that in mind, having just a couple bullets at the end, summarizing, again, you don't want to summarize experience, but you want to showcase those couple of additional outcomes that you were able to generate earlier on without drawing attention to the dates of employment.

[00:34:42] Loree Philip: Yeah, that's really, really helpful stuff.

[00:34:47] Loree Philip: Thanks for sharing that and we're going to start to wrap things up here. I would love to hear just any kind of pep talk you might have for people. I mean, you get to see. People [00:35:00] who come in, update their resume and start seeing success. And I think some people, it would be beneficial for people to hear that people are getting results.

[00:35:11] Loree Philip: They are getting interviews. And from your perspective, if you could share some, a little bit of a. Pick up message for people.

[00:35:22] Steph Cartwright: My greatest piece of advice would be embrace change. Embrace the fact that what worked 5, 10 years ago isn't working now for a reason. There is so much happening behind the scenes.

[00:35:36] Steph Cartwright: Not just with HR best practices, but also with the technologies they're using, the best thing you can do is educate yourself and embrace that change. If you are holding onto the resume that you had 10, 15 years ago, and you're not willing to see that format, that approach changed, you're going to continue to struggle because the world is moving so fast and as a job seeker, if you don't move with it, [00:36:00] you're going to continue to struggle.

[00:36:02] Steph Cartwright: So the, the greatest. A piece of advice I could give is don't be afraid of the change. If you're reaching out to a professional for help, take their advice, take their strategies, and give them a try before you say this isn't going to work for me. Because I have seen amazing results from my clients.

[00:36:20] Steph Cartwright: I've seen my clients land interviews in a matter of days. After not getting interviews for months, and I've also seen quite a few of my clients land higher paying jobs in a matter of months, 60 days, 90 days, max, and higher paying because their resumes are positioning them as higher valuable assets to the employers.

[00:36:41] Steph Cartwright: So just keep keep those tips in mind as far as not being so attached to what was what worked in the past.

[00:36:49] Loree Philip: Yeah, I think that's sage advice and I, I know we can all relate to people who, I don't think people are stuck in the past, but I think what people, what happens [00:37:00] is that we don't think about a resume until we need to, and then you go out and you search online and there's so much varied information out there.

[00:37:09] Loree Philip: It's really hard to understand. What works, what doesn't work, what's actually the current best practice. And I can completely empathize with people that are in this process, haven't been in years and like, WTF, what am I doing? So thank you for your, your advice. Today, Steph, I really appreciate you entertaining all my questions.

[00:37:34] Loree Philip: Absolutely. And if you can share with the audience where they might connect with you and learn more about your work.

[00:37:41] Steph Cartwright: Absolutely. My website is off the clock resumes. com and you can also find me on LinkedIn. My URL is Steph Cartwright CPRW. So I'm pretty easy to find. Feel free to connect with me, engage with me in the LinkedIn newsfeed.

[00:37:58] Steph Cartwright: I share tips [00:38:00] throughout the week on LinkedIn. So that's a good place to get more information from me as well. Great. Well, thank you again, staff. I really appreciate it. Thanks again

[00:38:10] Loree Philip: for having me.

[00:38:11] Loree Philip: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you've enjoyed it, I would love for you to subscribe. If you're already a subscriber, don't forget to share the podcast with a friend.

[00:38:23] Loree Philip: Make sure to tune in next week. We will be speaking with Hannah Tackett about how she recovered.

[00:38:30] Loree Philip: from burnout when she was a tech leader and how you can too. I hope you have an amazing week. It's your time to shine. Bye.