Your Resume: Presenting Your Whole Story

Session Transcript

Keri Hill, SECO Career Coach

- [Keri] So, thank you guys again for responding. We're going to go ahead and starttalking about our next step. So we're going to look at our agenda for today. So, fortoday's agenda we are going to talk about, define a resume, what it can do for you.We're going to talk about what you want to do before you write your resume andthen the parts of a resume. We're going use a sample from the Resume Toolkit onMySECO to kind of talk about the parts of a resume and also a job posting so that youcan see kind of how that works and that in detail. Then we're going to talk aboutresume formatting and layouts and best practices and then the Applicant TrackingSystem which sounds much scarier than it is. And we'll talk more in detail aboutthat, then we'll have a summary and then I will, as I mentioned, come back on videofor any questions you may have. So let's start with talking about what is a resume?So a resume is defined as a brief written account of accomplishments, skills, andabilities from volunteer, educational, and professional experiences. So that soundsvery detailed there, but what it really is it's your chance to tell the employer yourstory. So a resume can do a lot of things for you as we were talking about earlier, as Imentioned it can tell your story. How did you get to where you are? Who are you,what are your skills and strengths? What is your education/employmentbackground? How are you unique and what makes you different from othercandidates? What can you bring to this position that can make you stand out? It alsoshows an employer how you match a position. So it's helpful if you have a masterresume for each occupation and tailor it, each resume, excuse me, tailor eachresume to the job using keywords for the job postings just to show how you fit intothat, and it helps to grab the attention of employers and it really gives you a chanceto impress them. And then finally as we're saying, the most important thing of all isto land you a job interview so you can just show your awesomeness to the employerand so they'll, you know, just give that to them. So, you know, as a career coach, I seea lot of resumes and the ones that really stand out to me are those that show a littlebit of personality. You know, you think about, an employer may look at hundreds ofresumes, so showing how your story is unique helps you separate, excuse me, helpsseparate you from the rest, and then please do remember though, even if you havethe most perfect, wonderful resume in the world it may not get you an interview

every time. There are things that happen behind the scenes that we may not be privy to, and I know that's hard 'cause no one likes rejection, it's painful, no matter where it comes from, but just knowing that sometimes it's not about you at all, and not about your resume. So let's go on and talk about some other things, things that you may want to do before you write your resume. There are a lot of things we think about. I would start out with just researching employers and job postings. And you want, that helps you to get to know the field, so a great place to start is the MSEP job search tool on MySECO. We have over 390 employers committed to hiring, retaining, and promoting spouses, so this is a great place to do job searches, but it's also a great place to look at employers, find out, we have, they provide like a nice summary about the employer, links to their Facebook pages, their company website, and the job postings as well and you can kind of see what the employers are looking for, what skills, education, experience are they looking for, and do you meet those requirements or do you need some additional training which sometimes we find out we do, and that's completely okay, to be like, ooh, I really want to do that, so I want to work to get that information. Another thing as we were saying kind of taking a look at the company website, their vision, their mission and values, and does that fit with your own? And then also social media is a great resource as well. You know, as we were saying, kind of LinkedIn, their Facebook pages, those can show you their public persona. You can even check out their Twitter, what are they talking about? Next you want to assess your own goals. Take some time to brainstorm. Is this your first job? Are you changing careers? What are your short and long-term goals? And how will this job fit into those goals? I want to pause here to talk about, oftentimes we talk about what employers want in an employee, but we don't talk about too much what do you want in an employer, you know, and this can help as well. How will this help you reach your goals? Because you know, and I do understand, sometimes we need a job to pay the bills and we can't be too choosy at that moment. Unfortunately we can't pay the rent with promises and kindness, which I completely understand, but if you can think about how this job will help fit into your goals, and sometimes it's not obvious. For example if you're in customer service, there's all kinds of ways to translate into the medical field because you have to work with people, so there's just different ways you can do that. Evaluate your skills, strengths, and experience. You know, how can you be an asset to the company? Definitely think about your professional experience but also consider experience outside of that such as life experiences that are unique. You know, military spouses experience, deployments, you have to develop all kinds of skills that many of your civilian counterparts don't have to develop like independence, flexibility, adjusting to change. I cannot think of a job in the world where those skills are not valuable. And then think about your skills and strengths, what do you have that can make you stand out? You know, we all have unique skills and experiences in our lives, and just kind of drawing from that and what kind of experiences you have. And then finally I would suggest reviewing some sample resumes. There are some really great ways to kind of take a look at different samples to kind of get an idea of the verbiage and the layout, you know, in regular conversation, a lot of resumes start out with action verbs. In our regular conversation we don't often speak like that, we don't speak as we do in resumes, so getting comfortable with that. For example, I don't lead with an

action verb when I talk about brushing my daughter's hair, I don't say, assisted daughter with brushing hair. That just doesn't work, right? So getting used to writing in that way can really make a difference and also give you an idea of the layout and how it looks. And personally I'm a very visual person, I don't know about you guys, but I like to see that example. So there's a couple places you can look at that, the MySECO Resume Toolkit is a really great place to do that. You can go onto our homepage, click on the employment readiness, and come down and you'll see a resume toolkit where we have some samples as well as some other, a lot of great articles about writing your resume. Another option is CareerOneStop's Resume Guide, they have some great samples there as well. We have a link on MySECO as well for that. Finally we're going to talk about one other thing you want to do before you start writing your resume. So you want to think about the format that would show your skills the best and work best for you. There's three different kinds of formats, there's functional, chronological, and combination, and so you use those for different reasons. So the functional is more of a skills-based format, so this is when you have gaps in your resume or no work experience. So let's say, a good example might be if you have been out of work for about five or six years, you've been raising a family or you were overseas and weren't able to find a position there, the functional might be a really good option for you. Chronological is also, is another option. So this one is more employment-focused, it's utilized, you'll do it in reverse chronological order, it's the most common for those with work experience. So, usually put your most recent position first and then you know, in order from there. And then we have combination which is a bit of both, and this, the focus is more on skills and accomplishments but with the work experience added as well. You want to use this when you're a recent grad with limited work experience or just a few years. And the sample we're going to be talking about today is a combination format which I think is a really good one. So, now we're gonna talk about the parts of a resume. So there are some distinct parts you're going to see up here the header, the professional summary, core skills, professional experience, educational experience, and then we have a couple optional sections, and the optional sections include like computer skills, volunteer experience not related to the application, professional affiliations, continuing education, so, and sometimes you're going to switch the way these are in order, so sometimes you may put your education experience above your professional experience. It just depends on what you want that employer to focus on. That can really make a difference. So what I'm going to do now is show you a sample and we're going to look into details about this sample resume. So, let's take a look. So I want to introduce you to Miss Joan Parsons. She is a medical assistant, a Certified Medical Assistant in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and she is looking for a position as a medical assistant. So we're going to look at her resume in detail. So her resume is tailored for the position that she's applying for, and I will show you kind of, we're going to take a look just in a second here at the job posting and how she tailored it. So she definitely tailored this, this wasn't her master, most likely this was a tailored resume, and again this is a sample so it's kind of a perfect situation with the job description. I don't know about you guys but sometimes I don't see the job descriptions being this detailed, but it's really helpful when they are, right? We like that a lot. So we're going to start out with talking about a heading. So this is the first

thing that the employer's going to see. It's very centered and you can see it has her name or her credentials if applicable, it also has her address, phone number and email. Now she has a LinkedIn account, you can also put that there in there if you wanted. So with the name, you want to make everything again centered. The name's a little larger so it stands out a little more as well as her credentials stand out a little more. Below that you're going to see her address there on the left. So if you are moving to another area, it's a really good idea to put in you know, the city that you're moving to, just because sometimes employers don't, won't look at your resume unless it's in their city, so that can make a difference. Unless you're teleworking or looking for something like that, that's a different story, but with this guy, and you can take out the street address, you don't have to add that in there. So, you can, and then on the right you're gonna see her email address there, and so one thing I want to say about email addresses and LinkedIn accounts is you want to keep it fairly simple. Think about what you want to project to the employer. That can be really helpful, what do you want them to know about you? And this is true with your LinkedIn account as well, is your photo up to date, is your information up to date, keeping that there. Another thing to think about is your Facebook and your Instagram, and your Twitter feed, how do you want, you know, if the employer does look at that, what are they going, what assumptions are they gonna make about you based on that information? So you know, just kind of thinking about that. The one thing I like to think about is you want to keep everything rated G for grandma, 'cause if your grandma couldn't look at that, you wouldn't want your grandma to see it, you might not want an employer to see it, just depending on how you feel about it. So let's go ahead and talk about, now we're gonna look at the professional summary, oh, actually, the professional summary here, so a professional summary is just a couple of sentences about you. So see at the top she has her title as a Certified Medical Assistant, that's the kind of job that she's applying for, and she also wants that to stand out for them to know that she is certified. It shows how much experience she has, so it's just a short blurb. You want it to be short and to the point and explain, quickly sums up why you're a good candidate for the job and then use a couple keywords and information, you just want it to entice them to read more about you. Also put in here, you know, explains what you're looking for in employment, this is kind of here, you can put that in as well, but I would focus more on the one, three, and four, of those, that information. And also you can see here that she does mention some key skills, so she does have two years of experience, she talks about HIPAA, working with individualized patients, excuse me, individualized patient care, communication, so those are some really important things that she mentions. So we are going to pause for just a moment for another polling question before we get on to core skills. So, you know, a lot of people struggle with talking about themselves, so I'm just going to ask you a little bit to see how you feel about it. So how do you feel about talking or writing about your strengths and skills? It's no problem, I can do it easily. I can do it when I have to but it isn't comfortable. Depends on the situation and who I am talking or writing to, and I struggle with it a lot. I'll give you guys a few moments. Thank you guys, it looks like everybody's getting in there so that's great. All right, thank you guys so much. Wonderful, so it sounds like we're down there most, so it looks like we're really even, so it looks like

a lot of folks are feeling, depends on the situation and who I'm talking to. It sounds like about 20, 25% of you are feeling like you struggle with it a lot. Some can do it but it's uncomfortable. We have a few that say it's no problem. Perfect. Thank you guys so much for responding. I really appreciate you taking the time. It looks like we're slowing down in a little, no, got a few more in there. Give you guys another moment or two. All right. Every time I say that, somebody new responds, thank you. All right, it looks like we're slowing down a little bit there. Wonderful, thank you so much for responding to that. So it sounds like you can do it, but it's uncomfortable. The majority feel like it's uncomfortable or it depends on the situation, and there's still some, you know, quite a few that feel like it's a struggle. So thank you guys so much for responding to that, I really appreciate it. I know a lot of people struggle with talking about themselves and it can feel really awkward, but it is a helpful skill to have when applying for jobs, you know. A potential employer will not know your skills unless you tell them, so a good thing to do is if you can practice, you know, brainstorm, think about your skills, talk to family and friends, reach out to career coaches at SECO, we're here to help, we'll be happy to help you any time to kind of, working on that, we have, you can do interview practice, you can do all kinds of things to just kind of help you get that preparation. So now we're gonna move on to the core skills section. So this is where you want to list key skills that match the job posting that you have experience in. You want to tailor it to each job. Avoid using general soft skills unless it's specifically requested in the job listing. And so what I mean by soft skills is we talk about hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills are usually learned through education and on the job training, and so in Joan's resume, medical coding is a good example, electronic medical records, those are some hard skills. The soft skills are more personality characteristics and are generally inferable. You may have learned those in all situations, you can learn them anywhere, so it's a life skill which are really really really valuable. So in Joan's case here, the interpersonal communication is a really good suggestion here 'cause that's something that's really needed especially in a medical field. You can also have an accomplishment section here. It can be included under core skills, so your unique or outstanding achievements, and they can also be put in the professional experience section, it just kind of depends on where you want, what you want the employer to focus on and think about the first third of your resume, you want that to be especially interesting so they'll keep reading through the rest of it. So now we're going to pause a moment again and take a look at the job description. So what I did with this job description is I went through and highlighted the keywords and terms that seemed important in the position summary, qualifications in the job details. As you can see there's a lot of items highlighted so now we're gonna take a look at Joan's resume, see how Joan's resume is matching up so far. You know, after reviewing her personal summary and core skills, so there's a lot of stuff here. So based on what we've gotten so far, as you can see they are in blue, Joan has tailored a resume with the position using the keywords from the job posting here. So, she talks about her location, the number of years she has worked, or I'm sorry the months she has worked, she worked in dermatology, experience with OSHA, so she does have a lot of the, a lot of it she has put in here already. So but let's pause for a second, and what happens if your skills don't align with those? And sometimes, like Joan, sometimes that does happen and

we can't make our experience fit with what's desired. You know, if not, think about the skills you need to gain to make it happen, if that is a job you really want. You know recently I went to a great hiring event and had the good fortune of meeting many wonderful military spouses as well as servicemen and women to help with career coaching. I also got to meet some potential employers, and one of the employers recommended something that I thought was really wonderful. He suggested the applicants really focus on what makes them unique and how it translates to that specific position. You know, I thought this was really great advice 'cause we each take a different road to get to our end goal, but the things we learn along the way can really be invaluable for our success. And this is, as I was mentioning earlier, like working in customer service can really translate very well to other service fields like the medical field or if you're going into social work or you know, all of those people skills really help in so many other situations, and having that is essential when you work in those kinds of fields, so just kind of thinking about what experiences you have that can make you unique. So now we're gonna move on to the professional experience so as you can see here, this is her professional experience, this is where you want to enter in your work and internships and volunteer experience. The volunteer can be added here if it relates to the job. In Joan's case, she put it under another section which we'll be talking about, in volunteer experience. Just depends on, you know, how you feel about it, how it's leading. So definitely utilize the action verbs we were talking about such as here you'll see provided and assisted and coordinated, you want to lead with that. Be sure to use past tense unless you're currently working in the job. And if possible provide quantifiable information. So what I mean by quantifiable is just, is numbers. So in Joan's example, she uses the patient numbers you'll see it's her first bullet here, it says provided direct dermatological support to one physician treating 15 to 20 patients on a daily basis. So she talks about that 15 to 20 patients. So why would we want to use numbers? You know it gives you that concrete data that they're looking for and it's not so general and it has more of an impact than if we said treating patients on a daily basis, treated patients on a daily basis, which is great, but sometimes those numbers really make a difference. Another example might be like if you're in sales, something not related to the medical field, increased sales by 50% during initial six months, that's a really good one as well. I know sometimes we don't have access to that information, it's kind of hard to get that if it's been like five years since we worked, or a couple years ago since that, and we don't always keep that data. If you do have access to an annual review, that information might be in there. Job descriptions, sometime they leave it there, you know, sometimes it's just not available. If you can, estimate to the best of your ability, and then in the future if you can also keep a journal of accomplishments and that can help you in the future. You also want to weave keywords from the job posting as we've been kind of saying into your professional experience, kind of get those words in there. You don't want to cut and paste from the job description, but just kind of weaving it in a bit, and then, you know, delete experience that's over 10 to 15 years old unless it's especially relevant. And I know that, that can be hard especially if you have a lot of experience and you worked really hard for those jobs that you had 10 or 15 years ago, but it doesn't mean that it didn't count or that it's not important. You can really

talk about that in your cover letter if you want as examples, you can also talk about that in an interview. The goal is just to get to that interview and get your name out there, and then that will help you more with it, and then you can really speak to those other experiences that you had as well. What about gaps? So if you can avoid gaps in your resume, if possible, please do. If you can't, you know, sometimes we just have gaps. So a couple options, you can use a functional or combination resume format, you can remove the months and just provide the years as Joan did here. You know, speak to it in your cover letter, add volunteer experience to your professional experience or the volunteer sections which show you were active during that time. There can be a lot of good reasons to have gaps especially if you have a family or if you've moved a lot, you know, it's just gonna be a challenge, so. So let's, we're gonna go ahead and pause one more time here to take a look at Joan's resume once more and see how she did with keywording. So as you can see in magenta, she's added some more things from her professional experience, everything from assisting the surgeries to greeting patients. You know, she definitely tailored this one. So we're gonna go on a little bit further and talk about education here. So, with education you want to include course of study and years of graduation or expected graduation. You can include your GPA of 3.5 or above if you have limited work experience in the field. Once you work for a little while, you can take it off 'cause your work experience is going to speak for you. Include any awards or honors, you know, certificates, certifications here. You can also put licenses here, if you have license information or continuing education if you want to add that here. We have, we can do it in another section but if you want to shorten it, you can definitely do it there as well. One thing that can be different here is with the education, depending on what you want that employer to focus on, putting your education at the top under core skills can be helpful if you want them to focus more on your education and less on your professional experience, kind of making that the most important thing. If you're a recent grad, or you're changing career fields and you got, you know let's say you got your Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and your previous experience was in something different, so this can be in the medical field, for example, so this can really help that. So, let's go on to our optional sections here. So, everybody has different ones, but for Joan she put in the volunteer experience, and she utilized this because she did have some gaps back in her professional experience. Go back. Let's see, here we go, 'cause she had some gaps in 2013, as well as 2010, so this is how she's trying to explain those gaps, so she was in those fields, sorry, there we go. So she was a volunteer in Germany, she was also, did some volunteering in Maryland. And so that can be really helpful. She also lists her computer skills which is good, helpful as well. If she was a member of any professional organizations or she could also do licensing and certifications here but she could also put that under education. Professional affiliations like the National Association of Social Workers, if you're a social worker. There's all kinds of different ones and it just shows that you're involved in the community and you're, you know, in your profession which can be really helpful. So now we are gonna do our final evaluation here, so how did Joan match up to that posting? It looks like she did pretty well here. Looks like she really tailored her resume to show how her skills and experience meet the employer's needs. And again, please remember this is a

sample, so you may not match the employer's needs perfectly. You know, it is a rare find to meet that specifically, but making every effort to do so can really be helpful you know, as much as you can. And so from the example we've seen how important the content of the resume is, but before writing your resume, we also want to consider the format and the layout. So. Here we go. So here's a couple things just to think about when you're doing a format, when you're formatting the resume and the layout. So it's really important just to keep it streamlined, easy to read, so that's, and consistent. So I really focus on that a lot, you know, to do that you can kind of focus on your font type, just making sure it's not too fancy, like Arial. I don't know about you guys, I love those fancy fonts, but they just don't read well when you look at a resume or anything you want somebody to read. The font size you want to keep it just over 14. You know, if you go down below that it's really hard to read. You get too big, it takes up too much space. Line spacing, margins, same kind of thing, keeping it evenly spaced, and then using bolds, italics, and underlines. So this is a good one, you want to use this to your advantage. So what you want them to focus on again, I know I keep saying that but really what you want them to focus on, kind of making it stand out, making it, so it's helpful to kind of look at it and be like, okay does this, what stands out on my resume if someone's looking at it. Keeping it about one to two pages is really great, you know, you don't want it to be too long 'cause you think about if an employer's going through hundreds of resumes, you know, they just don't have the time sometimes to go through that many that are, you know, three or four pages long, even if you have amazing, wonderful experience, you just want to condense it. Again, you know, what's important, keep the top part of your resume very interesting so that they'll want to keep reading. So, you know, the bottom line is you want to keep it consistent, and easily readable. So for example, you think about books that we read, if you're reading a book and the font size is too tiny and it's kind of funky looking, you probably won't continue even if the information is great, even if the book is wonderfully written and it's amazing, if it's not easily readable, you may not continue with it. So, let's see. So let's talk about, we're going to talk about some best practices here. Wonderful. So here are a couple of best practices for a showstopping resume. So some of these we've already kind of talked about, I know I've been hitting home about tailor your resume and utilizing keywords. You also want to be conscious of your grammar and have people proofread it a lot. You know, proofread it, step away from it, come back, read it again, that can really help 'cause sometimes, I don't know about you, but I'll write an email and I look at it later like what is that? I missed like five words in there, it's embarrassing. So it's really helpful if you can go back in, step away from it, come back to it, have other people look at it. 'cause you know bad grammar shows that you didn't take the time to review it, and so you want them to see, this is an example of you and who you are as an employee, so you want to make sure that it's good grammar, and it, as I was saying, you know, having several people review it can be really helpful. Again, try not to go overboard, if you have tons and tons of people, you're going to, you give it to 20 people, you're going to get 20 different opinions about your resume, so just be comfortable with that. You may get some really great feedback and some of it you might be like, hmm, no, I don't think that's really, you know what I'm, I don't agree with that. So you know, just depending on how you

want to do it, I find that if I give it to too many people it gets kind of confusing, so just kind of going through it like that. Again, contact your career coach for some help if you want someone to proofread it, this is what we do for, you know, this is what we do all the time, so definitely reach out to us and we're happy to help you. We can review it, we can give you feedback, we can give you resources, all that kind of stuff. So again, keeping the resume like one to two pages, not too long, and ask yourself as you're reading this, does it tell my story? Is this who I am, does this tell my professional story well? Again, is it easily readable and organized? And then the Applicant Tracking System which we're going to talk about in a few minutes, so we'll get into that as well. And then if you're going to give a hard copy to somebody, make sure it's on resume paper, you know, that thick paper looks so nice. The thin paper is great for some things but it's nice to have that thick paper if you can. And then finally, a cover letter. And this can be really helpful, I know I've heard from some folks that, you know, they had heard not to use that. I'll re-recommend using it. It just shows that you put in the extra, you went the extra mile. It can give just more information about you and it's such a great supplement to it, so. I am going to pause for one more second and we are gonna look at polling question about applicant, so by a show of hands, how many people have heard of the Applicant Tracking System? I'll give you guys a moment. All right. Definitely a few, and a couple are like, never have, not heard of that, absolutely. And a lot of people haven't, so if you haven't, no worries, this is what I am here to talk to you about. So, wonderful, thank you guys so much for responding. So I'm glad we're talking about that today 'cause this is really important information. You know, that Applicant Tracking System, more commonly known as ATS, provides companies a way to manage resumes received and screen job applicants for those who have the required skills, education, and experience. So, and that sounds very, you know, sounds really serious here, but what it really is is it's a computer system that makes it easier for employers to go through resumes. So instead of getting 1,000 resumes, they get this computer system that goes through, looks for keywords, looks for information, and spits out 500 for them to look at. So if your resume is not in a certain format, it may not get through to the actual person who's looking at it. So it just makes it easier for them just trying to look through 1,000 resumes would take a while, right? It would take a long time, so this just makes it shorter for them and so there are certain things you can do to optimize your resume for the ATS. Most of it we've already talked about. One thing, a tip that I learned that I thought was a really great one, so we talk about the name and contact information at the top of the resume, so you want to have your location there because if it's not in the city, a lot of times it may kick that out. Another thing that I thought was interesting is if you use a header, I would recommend not using a header for this if you're applying online just because if you do use that, sometimes ATSes don't recognize a header. So then it doesn't think you have a name so it's gonna kick that out. Again, using that streamlined format, professional font, consistent spacing. You don't want to use a lot of graphics and fancy stuff even though the fancy stuff looks really nice. And it can be fancy, like have a different resume when you come in to hand a resume to somebody that looks a little more interesting, but for this you want it to be boring. So you just want it to have the information is what you want them to focus on, not how it looks, and as well you

want it to look streamlined, but not anything too fancy. So again, you know, you want to also put your employment, dates of employment to the right of the company name. I know some folks will sometimes put it on the left, but it tends to read it on the right, so you want to have that there. Again, using keywords, including all your information. So, definitely a lot of, definitely helpful here to have that, so. So we've got some really great resources here to get you started on building or optimizing your resume, so you can as always schedule an appointment with one of us, so the SECO career coach, we're here for you, we can help you any time. Another couple things is the MySECO Resume Toolkit that I mentioned earlier, this is, as I said this is where that sample came from. There's so much wonderful information there, there's samples of cover letters if you need any help with that. There's also GCF Global's Resume Writing Module, it's really wonderful, as well we also have the Resume Builder on MySECO which is part of the Resume Toolkit, and then CareerOneStop's Resume Guide that I mentioned earlier, they also have some, a cover letter guide as well to kind of help you build that cover letter. So definitely check out these, give us a call, we're here to help you with anything. So you know in summary, I know that resumes can be intimidating, but there are a lot of resources to help you create a resume that really tells your story. You know, remember to create a resume that illustrates to an employer why you are the best fit for the job and the best candidate. So and again as I was saying, please always call SECO to speak with us, if you need help, we're here for you. So, we are at our question answer session so I'm gonna go back on video chat in a few moments and then we will answer any questions. As you can see here, please connect with us on Facebook, on Twitter, LinkedIn, we have a presence there. Give us a call, as you can see we're here often. We also do lots and lots of events, we have a Facebook Live on May 9th, and please come to the virtual hiring fair on May 2nd 'cause that is going to be awesome. So we're really excited about that. So, all right, so I am going to start my webcam and start with some questions here if you guys want to put any in there. All right. So, hello, I'm back. So I am ready for any questions you may have. You're most welcome Miss Mary and Anne, you're most welcome. And Anne you're most welcome, we're so glad that you guys are here. Oh, thank you so much Mel, that's good to know, Times New Roman, I did not realize that, that's awesome to know that, thank you. Meka says thank you for the great information, you are most welcome. Miss Carla Porter has a question. So for resumes geared for jobs in the IT field how do I prove I possess strong analytical skills and good problem-solving skills? That's a really good question. I think that's a good place to put it in your, you can put it in accomplishments if you like. You can also give examples of that in your cover letter which I think is a really good place to do that. A lot of people put like examples of what they say in their resume in their cover letter, which can be really helpful then they can really see, oh, that's how you did that. But if you have any questions and would like some help with that, definitely call SECO and we can kind of help you break that down a little more, too. Let's see, Miss Margaret, how do you recommend annotating on a resume a degree you are currently working on? That's a great question, Margaret, thank you so much, and thank you Carla, I'm sorry, I didn't thank you for that question, that was great. So Margaret, I would say in the education section you would just put, you know, what is it, expected graduation 2020 or do summer 2019, and you can talk

about like relevant coursework if you want, something like that. Thank you so much for that question. Let's see here, Erin. So what type of info is typically saved for the CV? That is a really good question. Hmm. That's a really super question. I am... I would say a lot of that information would be, I would definitely give us a call on that, Erin. That's a really good question. It might take a little bit longer for me to answer that, but if you'd like to give us a call and set up an appointment, we can definitely help you with that. Thank you so much for that question, I'm sorry I don't have better information for you on that, but definitely give us a call and we could answer that for you. You are most welcome Maria too. Laura, absolutely anytime. Katrina, thank you so much, you should be able to watch the video later. I believe, I'm probably not the person to speak to that, but I think they do keep recordings of it, they have in the past, but I'll let maybe somebody from tech answer that question, but I believe it's recorded, or I know it's recorded, but. Okay, let's look at some more questions. Let's see, thank you. Miss Patrica, I have held jobs for only six months due to PCS. Should I list them on my resume or will it ultimately hurt me? That's a really good question, I mean you could try you know, you could try a different format if you wanted kind of making it more like a functional or a combination format so you're focusing more on your skills as opposed to your experience. If you want to kind of switch that up. I would say the combination might be better. You know, it really depends, I would, if you want to talk with us, we can give you some kind of personalized feedback with a career coach, we could kind of take a look at it and talk to you about it and kind of see your experience and what you're looking for, but I would say just offhand I think a combination format would be great 'cause you're really focusing on your skills that you've learned in your experience and that's hard you know, because when you PCS especially if it's one of those six PCSes and you've had to move all over the place that's awesome that you've been able to get a job though and that you've worked even when you've had to move so much. So you know, I think that speaks volumes about you as well, so definitely give us a call, we can help you with that. Let's see. So Miss Pratt says where in a cover letter or resume do we mention that we are a military spouse? That's a really good question. I think it really depends on you. Some people don't mention that at all, some people do, it just depends on the employer that you're applying to and what you're comfortable with in my opinion. You know, if it seems to be an employer that is very military friendly, you know you could definitely mention that in there. If you're not so sure, you know, just depending on how you feel. I think as a military spouse and thinking about what kind of employer you want to work for and someone that is military friendly is going to be super excited to have you, but I know sometimes depending on the experience that that can be harder, so definitely, you know, depending on where you want to put it. I think sometimes people put it in their cover letter, and they could also put it in their professional summary as well if you do want to state that information. You can also do on LinkedIn, you can include, what is it, sorry my words here, qualify yourself as a military spouse by following the MSEP program or the MSEP forum, our programs, and that will classify you as a military spouse, so if employers are looking for military spouses, which they are, that can definitely be a help to you. Okay, thank you so much for that question, that's a great question. Who's here? Um. Sorry, I'm just scrolling down this here. Ariana,

I'm looking to get into the career field I have no experience in but I have skills like easily trainable, learns quickly, really good at organization and logical problems. Ariana, thank you so much for that question, that's a good one, especially when we're trying to change fields. What I would suggest is kind of taking a look at the job postings that you see and see what they're looking for. You can also do something called an informational interview with an employer. If you see somebody that you really want to, you know, a company that you really want to work for, maybe take it, you know, send them a note and see if you can either connect with them on LinkedIn or you can also see, talk with them and see what kind of things they're looking for and maybe what kind of steps you can take whether it's just kind of changing up your resume or if you need to take any different certifications or training, that might help you as far as getting a position in that, and so there's a lot of different ways to get into fields. Sometimes there's just a real clear way. You know, as a nurse you have to get your Bachelor's or your Associate's Degree in Nursing, and then you have to be a, take an exam, so in some places and other career fields it's not quite that straightforward and so you can try, there's all kinds of paths to get you where you want to go. So that's a really great question, Ariana, thanks so much. If you do need more help with that, kind of figuring out, please give us a call too. We have a lot of resources on MySECO to help you. Thank you for that question. So next, if you're specifically looking for a remote opportunities, how can you tailor your resume to showcase abilities to work remotely? That's a really good question, Heather, thank you so much for asking that. We had a, I think at nine o'clock we had a really wonderful presentation by Kara Smith who is the, she is for Instant Teams, She is a manager for Instant Teams, and she does all of the stuff that she does is remote, and so she had some really good suggestions. You know, you may, there's some really good information about kind of tailoring, using the verbiage that they look for. If you want to, I think that's gonna post up in about a week. I would suggest taking a look at that as well, that's a really great resource. Kind of talking about, you know, you can talk about your independence, looking for words that you see that are in job postings for remote work. So they're gonna look for somebody who's responsible and independent and trustworthy and able to have great time management skills. So definitely working in those things can be helpful, but I would really recommend reaching out to her at Instant Teams, they're on there, they're partnered with MSEP as well and they're gonna be at our hiring fair on May 2nd, so if you have time to come to that, I would really highly recommend that, she would have some excellent, excellent suggestions for you. So thank you so much for that question, Heather, that's a great one. You know working remotely I think seems like an awesome option. Wonderful. Let's see, and now, can you put a pending certification date on a resume as to a degree? I would say that you can. Personally I think that that's fine. If they want it to be completed, I would say maybe not, but definitely showing that you are in the process of doing that I think is really helpful 'cause they know, hey, she's working towards that and when's your certification date. So, thank you so much for that question, Tenella. Let's see, from Miss Julie, I've been a military spouse with a Master's degree for 11 years, avoiding my spouse status when applying for jobs. Are you finding there's a trend towards employers becoming friendlier towards spouse hiring? Should we acknowledge that we are military spouses or will it work against

us in securing employment? Thank you so much for that question, Julie, that is a really great question. I think it depends. I think there is more of an uptick in people being more, especially with the MSEP program, the employers that we're connected with as well as on LinkedIn. What I would suggest is maybe doing some research on the employer and seeing, do they seem military-friendly, do they mention that? Some employers will talk about that. And discuss what they're doing to support veterans, and you may see at the virtual hiring fair there are gonna be people that do that, so I think it depends on your comfort level and what you see as being the trend with that employer. That would be my recommendation, and definitely if you're looking for a position come into the virtual hiring fair because all those folks are gonna be military friendly. So they are going to understand the lifestyle and what it means, but that's a really great question, Julie, thank you so much for asking us. Let's see.

- [Moderator] All right, Keri, well thank you so much for the information that you have provided here today. This has been great, great interaction, great questions from the military spouses. So we ask that you just keep the questions coming, the chat pod will be available for a little while longer to answer any questions.

- [Keri] Thanks so much, Anita.

- [Moderator] Am I still getting the reverb? Yes I am. Okay, well I will actually turn it over to our producers to close out this presentation so that you can understand everything that's here or if I can actually turn it back over to Wendy to close it out. Okay, well I will close it out then. Or Keri if you would like to give any last words, that would be great.

- [Keri] Oh thanks, that's wonderful, thanks so much Anita. Thank you guys so much for being here with us, and so much participation, it's really been amazing. Please reach out to us anytime for assistance and just please remember just, you know, just be yourself. You guys are awesome, you have so many skills and wonderful talents, so we've just gotta put that in that resume and so please let us know how we can help, we're always here to help you. So thank you so much and have a wonderful rest of your day and we hope to see you at the hiring event really soon.