Optimize Your Resume for Career Success

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“The résumé has probably gone from about 40% to 35% of the hiring process to less than 10%,” said Macy Andrews, senior director of human resources at tech giant Cisco in an article for CNN.com.

Are resumes “dead”? On episode 2 of the Informational Interview 2.0 podcast, Heidi Scott Giusto and Kevin Anselmo discuss why the resume is still important and tips on how to ensure that yours stands out from the crowd.

We cover:

• Viewing the resume as a strategic marketing document.
• Effective resume writing and formatting.
• Creating a resume that is viewed positively by artificial intelligence.
• Address career gaps.

Related reading: Heidi’s article Update Your Resume to Optimize Career Success

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Kevin Anselmo 

You’re listening to the informational interview 2.0 podcast. This is a podcast focused on how communications can spark innovation and career growth. Welcome to episode number two of the informational interview 2.0 podcast. My name is Kevin Anselmo,

Heidi Scott Giusto 

And my name is Heidi Giusto.

Kevin Anselmo
Heidi, how are you today?

Heidi Scott Giusto
I am good. How about you?

 Kevin Anselmo
Not bad. I am looking forward to talking to you about a topic that I know you’re getting lots of questions about. And I’ve really enjoyed researching a little bit about this topic, and that is the role of the resume in 2020. In a world where the world is very disrupted. There’s this little thing called the Coronavirus, which has a lot of people out of work. You might have heard of it.

Heidi Scott Giusto
Oh no.

Kevin Anselmo
This podcast is focused on communications for career growth and innovation and obviously the resume traditionally has been been the number one vehicle to communicate one’s value proposition and going about looking for a job. And I know a big part of your work, maybe why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit about the work that you do in terms of resume support? 

Heidi Scott Giusto
Yeah, absolutely. So, as you know, I live and breathe resumes. So I work with job seekers. That’s a core thing of what I do with my business. And I help at all phases of what I call the job search campaign. So all the way from setting strategy to networking, resume, of course resume or CV cover letter, LinkedIn all the way through interview prep, but the foundation of so much of this really is the resume and it’s just it’s still something that people really have to think about and craft very carefully.

Kevin Anselmo
Yep. I mean, so for my Global Innovators Academy project, I mean, right now, I have this course called interviewing innovator, which is on informational interviews down the line, you know, do a course on resume development, something that’s really interesting to me something that I wouldn’t necessarily teach maybe someone like it would leave that, but just kind of get the ball rolling. There’s a lot of people out there probably know more. So, you know, in all your years of doing business, I imagine there’s more people now looking for support on best practices for, you know, creating a resume. Yeah, there’s a good possibility that there’s a lot of people who are even wondering, you know, what is the role of a resume? You know, it’s funny, like, so much has changed in, you know, all the time. Yeah, I, you know, you can think like, my parents who are in their 70s know, what a resume is, and that was their number one way of trying to get about a job. And that’s also like, you know, what is the role of the resume in 2020? Let’s start there. You know, if you do a Google search, and you know, look into this, you will see articles that say the resume is dead, you will see companies that are doing things differently in the hiring practices and not you know, requiring a resume what what are your thoughts on that?

Heidi Scott Giusto
Yeah, so when people ask me And they say, is the resume dead? I always say not yet. So a couple things with that what I think the role of the resume is twofold and really quite simple. One is to help secure you and interview. Number two, in this part often gets overlooked or people just don’t think about it this way. It’s, it’s a document that is actually going to help get you really excited to have that interview. And it’s going to set the tone for how the interview can go. Because you’re controlling and you’re showing the value you’re bringing how you can be of service to them. So if you have a very thoughtfully written resume, it can really help you get to that next step in the hiring process. But to your point, they go well, do I need a resume? Well, I’m here to say that even people who get jobs by getting the interviews through networking still need a resume. But in terms of the actual hiring practices in the US, at least for larger companies, mid sized to larger companies, you still have to go through a formal HR application,  submission process. And so you may have five people in a company who all have the candidate they want. Well, when people come and sit down and are deciding, well, who are we going to invite for interviews, the resumes part of that conversation. So I’m not saying that It’s the only thing that matters? Of course not. But it’s is still a very relevant document. And is the starting point for when I work with people in my practice.

Kevin Anselmo
Yeah. So I read an interesting article. And it was in CNN, the title was around the resume being dead. And just a little quote that I thought was interesting. The resume has probably gone from about 40 to 35% of the hiring process to less than 10%. This was said by Macy Andrews, who is the Senior Director of Human Resources at Cisco. I’m sure a lot of different people would say no, it’s still, you know, worth 40% to 35% of the the equation. Others might say it’s worth less than 10%. If it’s worth 10%, it’s still something that’s important, right? It’s still part of the equation.

Heidi Scott Giusto
Still 10% that means it’s still there. So whether you know, like, you really speak to that with not knowing what are those percentages based on? What are all the metrics and all that. But But yeah, it’s still there. It’s still the, you know, that piece of paper and it gets pushed from desk to desk so to speak. It’s still the document that if someone is told, oh, you’re interviewing this person, what are they? What are they given? They’re still given the resume to review. And of course, I mean, this is where I think you mean LinkedIn. Of course, LinkedIn is part of that. But it’s, it’s isn’t quite the same as here’s the candidates resume, I’ll email the resume or the resumes in the database. And we have all these applicant tracking systems. If we think of this just from the real like, practical sense. The applicant tracking systems, you’re not up in still a lot of cases, you’re not uploading your LinkedIn profile, your personal website, or your portfolio, you’re uploading document we all know as the resume.

Kevin Anselmo
You know, I guess I can think back to the times where I was in roles at Duke. Also, I end of business school. So it’s one where we were reviewing candidates for, you know, hiring them to our team. And I do except for me, personally, I would I would skew more towards, you know, what is their digital footprint? Like? What is their LinkedIn profile look like? What are their interests that they’re communicating about online? Because if you know, seeing how that connects to the job, but certainly the resume was part of the process. evaluation. What about you? I mean,

Heidi Scott Giusto
Well, it sounds like I just like comment on what you said of it sounds like for you still, it was the launching pad. It’s the launching pad for something more and in for you, that’s what it was. For some people it’s Well, I mean, the statistic that is tossed around is that people take the stick To 10 seconds to review to make a decision, I am an optimist and I say six to eight seconds before they will decide to read more.

Kevin Anselmo
That’s the case.

Heidi Scott Giusto
So, to your point, you know, if you I was working on a resume today and the person has this wonderful website, he’s a researcher and the website is really branded around his research and he did a just a really nice job. And of course, I’m including that website on the resume I’m including, my advice to people is always include your LinkedIn, you know, your URL, if you’re proud of the profile.  It is a place where you can include links to other other things.

Kevin Anselmo
Yeah. Um, you know, you wrote this article about optimizing your resume. Really interesting is one thing I really like about what you wrote is that your resume is a strategic marketing document. And a lot of people probably just look at resumes as you know, information to fill in checkboxes to check but you know, it’s interesting isn’t completely different. You know, if you if you look at this as this is a strategic marketing document, and you know, my work is not focused so much on resumes, but it is focused a lot on strategic marketing, like what do you want to be known for,  this idea of, you are going people to no matter what it is, whether it’s getting resumes, or, skimming their Facebook feeds or,scanning articles quickly on different websites, and then zeroing in on more information. It’s a strategic asset, and I think that should actually be for listeners, you know, that something to think about that this is Dziedzic marketing document.

Heidi Scott Giusto
Yeah, and I guess it’s interesting because my training as a historian, you know, before I got into having my business, but I tell people, it’s a strategic marketing document. I’m not an archive of information so that this is not just this archive, or Yep, I just fill in everything. Because just imagine I’m a perfect example of this. If I didn’t, if I’m writing a resume for myself, I don’t if I don’t have a target, so you all you work backwards, you have to know the target, because if I don’t have a target, what do I include? Do I include all the work I did as a historian in grad school? I mean, I had out 12 years of my life dedicated to that. Yeah, but that nobody cares. I mean, maybe some people care about that when when they’re hiring you to write a resume, but most often, no, they want it No, what are my credentials and experiences writing resume or career services? So you have, you need the target. It’s all strategy.

Kevin Anselmo
It’s also about, you know, for me, it’s, you know, when you think about as a strategic marketing asset, it’s also what’s in it for them. And I say this all the time, whenever I’m doing work on, you know, any sort of messaging or any sort of, you know, email marketing campaign, you know, social media posts, whatever it may be. It’s a marketing asset, you’re thinking about it from the end users point of view, the end user here being, you know, the hiring manager, or the recruiter or the HR person is taking a first review of, of the resume. And, yeah, writing for that audience. And, you know, I would imagine you probably see a lot of resumes that are written, talking about all the person’s great accomplishments and you know, kind of what you’re talking about in terms of it being like a historical review of a person’s journey, and less centered around you know, what you you The job candidate can do for me the employer.

Heidi Scott Giusto
Yeah! And I mean, there’s certainly a place for awards because I’m a believer in if you’re a high performer, a company’s going to want to know that because if you’ve gotten awards in the past, you’re more you know, you’re likely to get them in the future. But yeah, so other ways to think about this and to kind of wrap your head around it is, you are trying to present yourself as the solution to their problem. So you have to sell yourself, like so many people cringe at that. But if you think of it as well, they have a problem, you need to show that you’re the solution to the problem, or the whole other, you know, way of thinking is the service minded approach. You know, how can you serve them and so you make a claim of what you offer, and then that you provide evidence in support of that. But again, to your point you brought up yes, it’s all I mean, this is strategy. Because if you only have a couple pages, you can’t you know, I think it’s just be too overwhelming to say, Well, how do I cram it all and here, like, don’t go that route, don’t go that route, no eight point font. I want to ask you because I have the same thing. And maybe we’re veering off a little bit of resumes, but we’re speaking to that larger point of how much do resumes really matter. This is where I’m seeing that I think the world of self employed whether you call people freelancers or self employed, or solopreneurs or however but the people who have their single out for themselves, where there’s greater a lot there’s a lot more alignment and how you get profitable. We say that, you know, for full, you know, whether it’s a full time job or a consulting contract is cultivating the right environment. So where the resume maybe it’s needed sometimes. Yeah, you know, but it’s just one part of the conversation where you’re in a we have the same strategy. I mean, this is not just us out there. Putting testimonials out there is not rocket science, but we want people to vet us online. We want people to say, you know, we want to do that when somebody contacts us. It’s just it’s our opportunity to lose, right, meaning they’ve already looked us up. They feel comfortable. We’re really both assessing fit as long as we don’t totally mess up a conversation. Yeah, it will probably convert and that’s we’re setting though. It’s cultivating that right digital footprint. And so why don’t you tell me what do you do for that?

Kevin Anselmo
Yeah, I think it’s, you know, it’s it’s website, LinkedIn. You know, it’s also like, what do you want to be known for? And it’s, it’s, you know, a good example of this. You know, I started this podcast report that this podcast, I was doing a podcast called Learning development stories. And that podcast was focused on the communications tactics that learning development professionals are using. And the reason I started that podcast was because I wanted to work more with organizations, L&D departments, I had not, prior to that time, worked in a company’s L&D department directly doing communication strategy. And thanks to that podcast, and thanks for being known for that, based on the individuals I was interviewing, I was able to get some work in that space. You know, and I think the other way to kind of look at it from like the freelancers point of view. You know, one thing that I do is I don’t have employees never really aspired to have lots of employees or any employees for that matter, but I do bring on freelancers from time to time when you know the need arises. And, you know, I would say that You know, I’ll go to the different kind of Elance type websites where you can find different type of talent to help on specific priorities. And I would say that I do look at a resume. But you know, more often than not, I am focusing more, I guess I would use that the resume, you know, it’s good to kind of peruse somebody’s background. But then I would say that I look more at you know, what are they actually doing, especially if it comes to anything that’s like focused on graphic design, or anything that’s kind of in the creative space? I guess I care less about what you say on paper, and more about what that actual creation is. Can you talk a little bit what makes a you know, kind of successful collaboration between we’ll call you the career coach and the job seekers?

Heidi Scott Giusto
So the very first word that comes to mind and I think really sums it up, is the word motivation, or motivated. So if I have a job seeker who’s motivated then we tend to work through very well together. Because we’re it’s a collaboration, I tell people, you know, my process is very collaborative. So I can only do so much if, you know if they’re not engaged if I give them a questionnaire, and everything says, See resume, and the resume has a total of 300 words on it. And this is a person who’s been in the workforce 20 years. Even if we have our hour long conversation, it’s still only an hour, like, I only know what you tell me. So there needs to be motivation on their part to do what they need. So whether you have a gap or or you’re trying to just transition to something new or you’re a student trying to get that first job, think about the end in mind, what are what will the employer value, and then ask yourself, How can I include that ? And so for a student I’m working with one right now where she’s a finance intern. And I’m helping her out. And she was she knows that for her age and point of career, she really should have a one page resume like students really should have. It’s would be an exceptional circumstance for someone who’s 2 to 3 pages. And because of just how it was formatted, she had to cut out four years of employment as a hostess, and I in so it looked like she had way less experience than she actually did. But it says something to an employer. If you kept a job for that long, like that whole duration, you know, that can say that can say something good about your character. So I would say, thinking about well, what do I want them to know? And then finding a way to get it in there. So sometimes it’s just simple formatting tweaks. Sometimes it is taking out some of the things that aren’t as valuable but again, always thinking what will they value. And for students just particularly for students, I think it’s really good to show leadership. So they don’t really say and I’m mentioning that because they don’t really think about that. But if you can show leadership that that can be really good. Also now because of the the pandemic, if you’ve anybody this training, but if you can show an ability to work remotely like your track record of that, that can be good. Career gap. Let’s talk about that, that instance. So I will often just own that gap. So I work with people who’ve taken time off to raise children, and rather than have a four or five year gap, sometimes we just write career sabbatical to raise young children career sabbatical to care for ailing parent or you know, career sabbatical cared for young children. volunteered at three organizations, and whatever, you know, and whatever, if you’ve done something else, so you’re showing you’re being productive. Yeah. So I think owning that and then transitioning to a new field, I would say, it’s really smashing those skills, what have you done that aligns with what they need? And if there are some big gaps, you know, you want to be a social media manager. And you don’t have any certifications with digital marketing or Google Analytics. And you don’t really Yeah, you got to demonstrate it or get those certifications. And some certifications are free like Google Analytics for that’s a free one. So there’s a lot that you can do free and using trim wonderful sites like Coursera. Like that’s for MOOCs, massive open online courses, people can take classes from universities like do or Stanford or all different ones, on just this wide range of topics. So, you know, identify objectively identify where are my gaps, and then work to be able to legitimately include that information in the resume.

Kevin Anselmo
My friends who are listening, optimize your resume, read these article do what she tells you to do.

Heidi Scott Giusto
Thank you, this was so much fun about this.

Kevin Anselmo
I will let you get back to doing your one to one coaching on resumes. I assume that’s a big part of what you’re going to be working on for the rest of the day.

 

Heidi Scott Giusto
It is so more resumes and I’m also working on developing some online content for spin around this idea of tips. So tips on networking tips on resumes, and I’m collaborating with someone on that. So hopefully in a few weeks, I’ll have more to update. So that’s an exciting project. So how about you what’s going on on your end that you’re going back to

Kevin Anselmo 

so when we wrap up this call, I will be working on a communication strategy report for a client. It’s been I’m spending a lot of time on this. On this communication strategy report. Tomorrow, I’m presenting to them what’s kind of covered in this 21 page report and then talking about next steps. And it’s been a lot of fun because I do I do interviews with the different stakeholders involved. I do kind of benchmarking, you know, looking at what other competitors are doing, and they get my recommendation. So when I get my recommendations, it’s kind of like, this is blue sky scenario, like perfect, you know, world and you have unlimited resources. The reality is they don’t have unlimited resources. So then we kind of align on Okay, what are the things we want to prioritize a lot of fun, also a lot of work. So that’s what I’ll be tackling next.

Heidi Scott Giusto 

Yes, I’m looking forward to hearing more about it. I should do that. I need to hire you.

Kevin Anselmo 

You get a discount as a co host.

We will be back at you with episode number three in the very near future. And we will be covering taking this conversation to the next level and we’re going to be looking at common mistakes to avoid. So be on the lookout for that episode. In the meantime, thank you very much for listening and take good care.