Research shows that, on average, employers spend 7 to 30 seconds looking at a resume. Join Brandon, Jerry, and Clara to learn all about resumes—why they’re important, how to write one that’s effective, and what formatting is appropriate. They may also show you how to imbue your resume with magical qualities to really grab an employer’s attention. Cozy up with your favorite soup or salad, and listen until the end for a Career Center dad joke!
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McKinley Hatch
Welcome to Career Cafe, the podcast where we discuss all things career related to help you thrive in the professional world. Joining us today, we have Brandon Street, Jerry Ross and Clara Webster, experts in career development and resume writing. And of course, myself. MODERATOR McKinley Hatch. So, Brandon, Gerry, Clara, tell us why you're experts and resume writing.
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Brandon Street
Yeah, I'd be happy to. So I've spent, as I've talked about before, I spent 20 years in the field of career services. I'm also a nationally certified resume writer, professional, and went through some training to to get that certificate. So I've been helping people a long time with resumes and so happy to be here.
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Clara Webster
And I'm Clare Webster. Yeah, just like Brandon. I'm also a nationally certified professional resume writer, and I've been working here in the Career Center for about a year and a half now, helping students develop resumes and look for jobs and such.
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Jerry Ross
And my name is Jerry Ross. I am the employer relations person in the career Center, and I have many years of corporate level recruiting.
00;01;11;26 - 00;01;38;09
McKinley Hatch
Awesome. I love it. We have both of you that are professional resume writers and then Jerry’s perspective on the employer side. So today's podcast can be so good. We're going to dive into how to get your resume seen today. We know in jobs, several applicants come through applications where employers are often looking at them. So tell us a little bit about how an employer reads a read resume.
00;01;38;10 - 00;01;47;23
McKinley Hatch
I'm curious to hear Jerry’s perspective as well as you have some of the employer's side of this. But yeah, why don't you guys tell us a little bit about that today?
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Clara Webster
Yeah, for sure. I mean, really, one of the most important things with resumes to realize is that first impression is really everything with an employer. And another thing to realize is employers, they look very quickly through resumes. You know, sometimes they can get hundreds of applicants for just one job. And so you want your resume to just look very professional.
00;02;07;17 - 00;02;15;19
Clara Webster
But also look at this. It makes it really easy for an employer to look through and just scan the information that's in there very quickly.
00;02;15;21 - 00;02;35;14
Brandon Street
So you need to make sure that's presentable. Right. I mean, you've only got, as we've talked about before, anywhere from 6 to 30 seconds to get an employer's attention. That's it. And so with that, designing your resume and in a way that gets their attention is really important. Today, we're going discuss a little bit how to make sure we designed it to get you through that first impression in 6 to 30 seconds.
00;02;35;16 - 00;02;51;24
Jerry Ross
And I focus a lot on the summary section. I remember at one point in my career, I took a three day weekend and I came back and I had 1400 resumes in my inbox. So I'll be honest, I didn't read all of them from front to back all the way through. So the top section, the first half of the page is very important to get across.
00;02;51;24 - 00;02;54;18
Jerry Ross
How well do you fit the position that they're looking for?
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Brandon Street
Yeah, there was interesting enough, there are some eye tracking research that was done and as well some other research that we looked into and and that top third became really important. When we talk about 6 to 30 seconds, we know the employer spends the majority of that time in the top through the resume. So what you do there to get their attention is going to be very valuable to your resume.
00;03;14;03 - 00;03;28;17
Brandon Street
Then there's the other little things you know, we'll talk more about today, and that's impression in regards to how I've set up the resume, what it looks like, you know, grammatical errors that I may make or hopefully not make. Right. And those type of things to get their attention.
00;03;28;20 - 00;03;39;15
McKinley Hatch
Yeah. Why don't why don't you tell us about ATS and what that means to our listeners. What does it stand for and why should they be aware of what ATS is?
00;03;39;18 - 00;03;56;11
Brandon Street
You know, these are fun, right? These are so we you know, we sit down commonly with students and talk about these application tracking systems, right? These are systems that do the work of the employer, hopefully upfront. That's what they hope they do. So where Jerry had 13, would you say 1300, 1400.
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Jerry Ross
Fourteen Hundred.
00;03;56;18 - 00;04;18;09
Brandon Street
1400? Sorry, I don't want to leave out that other hundred applicants, but 1400 applicants. The ETS system is designed to help filter out candidates that do not meet the criteria for the job. And so what's interesting about these ATS systems, they basically act like a copy and paste. So they'll copy the resume, they'll paste it almost in a word version into, you know, a program that will read through it.
00;04;18;15 - 00;04;32;25
Brandon Street
And so the way you design your resume is important. We'll talk more about this in a future podcast. But but it's really important the way you design it to help make sure that that application tracking system indicates you're a good candidate and moves it on to someone to read who's who's a real person, Right?
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Clara Webster
Yeah. And along with the format there, you also want to make sure you're using some of those keywords that the employers are looking for in the job description, because not only, well, the ATS, you know, be copying and pasting your resume into its own system, but while it's doing that, it's going to be creating its own kind of like summary of what's in there and making sure that you're hitting all those checkboxes.
00;04;51;15 - 00;04;57;13
Clara Webster
So it's really important to use some of that industry language and also some of those keywords from the job ad.
00;04;57;16 - 00;05;28;29
McKinley Hatch
Yeah, this is super valuable information to know. And luckily we have a whole podcast devoted to this topic on ATS next week, so tune in next week to learn all about ATS and how to navigate that to make your resume as seen through these systems. So next time I want to dive into kind of the purpose of a resume and the resume basics and dive into what that looks like, what not even telling, but basically showing with as much as you can on a podcast.
00;05;29;06 - 00;05;33;28
McKinley Hatch
What a resume should look like to our to our listeners today.
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Brandon Street
Yeah, I think one thing that I would suggest we start with is before writing the resume, I think it's really, really important to make sure you understand very clearly what you're applying for, because tailoring a resume will really boost your opportunity to get an interview. And so the way that I tailor the resume effectively is make sure that I understand the job ad clearly I know what the company of their culture and who they are and take those elements and make sure that I build those into a targeted resume.
00;06;02;14 - 00;06;17;17
Brandon Street
Again, that's where I find the keywords. But then also that's also where I find out where the qualifications are and how I match those qualifications, because I want those things to pop quickly on the resume. Right? When we talk again about 6 to 30 seconds, I want those to pop very quickly.
00;06;17;19 - 00;06;42;12
Clara Webster
Yeah. In other things, you know, a resume basics besides tailoring it to each job ad, there are some kind of essential elements of charisma. You know what? You want to have a nice little header that pops out with your name. You've got your contact information there. You want to have a summary in there that goes over what kind of gives the employer, like Jerry was mentioning earlier, a quick snapshot of your general educators or your general experience and skills there.
00;06;42;16 - 00;07;00;21
Clara Webster
And that part should be very targeted towards whatever job you're applying for, because that's the part employers are going to look at. The most. But along with that, you will want to have work, experience, education, and even, you know, sometimes other additional sections, like if you have a lot of volunteer work, you can have different varied experience sections.
00;07;00;21 - 00;07;05;13
Clara Webster
But those are kind of the basics of what a resume should look like.
00;07;05;15 - 00;07;24;10
Jerry Ross
When I'm interacting with people, sometimes they'll give me that question, Do I need to write a new resume for every job I apply to? And the answer is it needs to be tailored. And something I recommend is having a master resume document where you've got all of your points written down for everything you've ever done, and then you're copying, pasting into the resume that you're going to submit.
00;07;24;10 - 00;07;37;05
Jerry Ross
So you don't have to rewrite it every time. You're just copying and pasting things that pertain specifically to that job. It works. Take some of the stress away from having to completely rebuild your resume every single time you do it.
00;07;37;08 - 00;07;53;06
Brandon Street
It is important to consider. I mean, I sat down with a student not long ago and I tell the story a lot because of the importance of this. But that student came in, said Brandon, I can't find a job. I've applied for over 100 jobs. I cannot get a job. And we had already had a discussion before about tailoring your resume.
00;07;53;06 - 00;08;09;04
Brandon Street
So I asked him, you know, are you tailoring your resume? And he said, I don't have time to tailor my resume, Brandon, for every job. Right? And I said, You don't have time not to. You just applied for 100 jobs and you have you haven't gotten an interview yet. And so he said, okay, all right, I got you.
00;08;09;04 - 00;08;28;27
Brandon Street
So I'll give it a shot. So he goes and tailors the resume. He calls me back within two weeks, says, Hey, Brant, I got an interview and I end up getting the job, you know, And and he thanked me for taking the time to talk about the importance of of tailoring. But it really is that important because if employers can spot I don't know about your experience, Jerry, but employers have told me I can spot a generic resume a mile away.
00;08;28;28 - 00;08;34;20
Brandon Street
I can tell if you're applying for my job or if you're applying for 50 jobs. Right. Does that seem to be the experience you've had?
00;08;34;27 - 00;08;54;07
Jerry Ross
Absolutely. And I feel like a lot of times when we're not specifically opening up the job post and your resume, you'll find some things, too, where it's not even like you're applying for that job. You know, it is so far off base for what that job would be because you were in a different mindset looking at a different thing when you wrote it.
00;08;54;09 - 00;09;06;27
Jerry Ross
I'm amazed at how many times I've seen resumes that I don't even know what they're applying for. I couldn't read their resume. If I had five different job openings, I couldn't figure out which one it was for off of just their resume.
00;09;07;03 - 00;09;26;15
Brandon Street
Yeah, we had a not long ago a machinist applied for one of our career advisor jobs, which we'd be happy to look at except for the resume. He spoke all machinist language. We didn't. I didn't even know what I was reading, to be honest with you, because I've never done machining before. But he was talking about all the machines he worked with to do that, the special tools he understood and things like that.
00;09;26;15 - 00;09;31;10
Brandon Street
And I thought, You look really good for a machinist job, but you don't look really great for caeer advisor.
00;09;31;13 - 00;09;34;10
Jerry Ross
Seeking a new opportunity in the machinist world.
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Brandon Street
Right, Exactly.
00;09;37;16 - 00;09;54;18
McKinley Hatch
Also, we talked about a summary a little bit and work experience and kind of the essential elements of a resume. Thanks for talking about that. What about the formatting? I want to touch on specifically font choice, whitespace, bullet points, all of that. What should that look like?
00;09;54;20 - 00;10;14;22
Clara Webster
Yeah, I mean, when I meet with students that are building a resume for the first time, kind of the main formatting things I'll go over with them is sometimes people I feel like want to stand out with a really fun resumé that has a lot of pictures and colors, you know, because you want to stand out. Right. But I tell them that's one of the worst ways you can stand out.
00;10;14;25 - 00;10;51;27
Clara Webster
You know, you'll definitely stand out, but not in a positive way. And so, you know, with overall formatting, you want this document to look very professional or typically black and white or one of the more kind of professional, darker color schemes that you can add and just small pops of color with. You also want there are few like specific fonts that you want to use, please, you know, no comic Sans or anything like that, but things like times your Roman Arial or just kind of some of those more basic kind of boring generic fonts, other things, you want it to be well-balanced across the page.
00;10;51;29 - 00;11;23;06
Clara Webster
We, we talk about having equal black to white space, which just means there's not a lot of blank areas in the resumé and the text just looks well spread out across the page. And then you also don't want it to be super like text heavy. As far as paragraphs go, we often recommend doing more bullet points just because if you want an employer to be scanning through that resume and they're having to scan through a bunch of paragraphs, they're not going to be able to pick up the information that you're trying to show them.
00;11;23;08 - 00;11;39;09
McKinley Hatch
So you guys, thank you for that information. We've talked about a lot on the summary. Let's dive into that section specifically. So tell us what what gets the attention from the employers and a good summary. What does a good summary look like?
00;11;39;11 - 00;11;58;13
Brandon Street
Yeah, again, we talked about the importance of the top three to the resume. And something I typically encourage students do is, is to have a summary at the top. Now the summary is to help the employer understand. I've got the experience, the skills, the knowledge and the characteristics that you're seeking in a candidate so should be very tailored to the job, right?
00;11;58;13 - 00;12;17;05
Brandon Street
Use the job ad to build your summary. The summary is your introduction of who you are and if you can introduce yourself as a qualified candidate for the job, they're more likely to invest in the rest of your resume. So the summary again introduces you will then spend the rest of the resumé verifying that summary right. How you obtain the things that you just talked about.
00;12;17;08 - 00;12;32;17
McKinley Hatch
So quick question on that summary. In my brain, I hear summary. The word summary in my head is multiple sentences running together. What does the summary look like? Tell us what that is.
00;12;32;19 - 00;12;42;12
Brandon Street
Yeah. So I would suggest the summary is anywhere from 4 to 6 bullet points, right? Of of usually one sentence information that you can, you can put there really quickly.
00;12;42;15 - 00;13;03;08
Jerry Ross
If your quality of writing doesn't help them make a decision. I highly recommend the bullet points. It's quick and to the point and from a recruiter standpoint they have questions they need answered. How can you answer those questions using the fewest amount of words possible? Make me read the least to answer the question I may have about you as an applicant.
00;13;03;11 - 00;13;21;07
McKinley Hatch
Yeah, I love it. I want to touch on the bullet points in the summary because in my head sometimes I think summary, you know, there's this many paragraph and in any of the hiring committees, I've been in there many paragraphs and I don't read them because who wants to read a paragraph, you know. So yeah, I love, love the idea of the bullet point summary.
00;13;21;13 - 00;13;35;17
McKinley Hatch
So links. Tell me the difference between a summary and a an objective statement. I hear those terms constantly, but what, what do they mean and what do we encourage our students to use?
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Clara Webster
Yeah, and so a lot of students would ask me, yeah, is it better to do a summary or an objective statement and an objective statement kind of more. I you know, I tell them it's almost like you're kind of showing the employer what you're hoping to get out of a job, right? You know, if you're applying for, say, a job in the engineering field, your recent graduate and you're objective could say something like, you know, recent graduate looking to gain experience within mechanical engineering or something like that.
00;14;01;25 - 00;14;23;09
Clara Webster
And, you know, at the summary. And the reason we recommend that more is because that's more focused on what you can give to the employer rather than what you're hoping to get out of this job. And so from the perspective of an employer, you know, typically they want to hire someone that they know can give them skills. They, you know, aren't usually as focused as what you're looking for out of the job.
00;14;23;13 - 00;14;25;05
Clara Webster
You know, they're looking for the right person to hire.
00;14;25;12 - 00;14;40;01
Brandon Street
Yeah, they already know you want the job. I mean, that's why you're applying for the job, right? That's why I tell students, like the object say you don't need to tell them you want the job, right? Like they know that now. Give them information about why they should hire you right off the bat. Let them know why they should take you serious.
00;14;40;03 - 00;15;06;00
Jerry Ross
Yeah. And sometimes I'll have students ask. Well, what about just a skill section where I just put words there and those words are great. And I think sometimes they make it past some of the automatic tracking systems that we spoke about earlier. But the employers want to know how. They want to know where they want. They want a little bit more than just throwing out a buzzwords, saying, I have it, They want a little bit more of a story to it than just a skill section, in my opinion.
00;15;06;00 - 00;15;11;05
Jerry Ross
I encourage you using that in your summary section as opposed to having a separate skill section of your resume.
00;15;11;09 - 00;15;31;03
Brandon Street
Right. I agree. I mean, everybody can say Microsoft Office, right? If I just put Microsoft Office, I mean, there's how many people can say that. But if I say certified in Microsoft Office. Right, etc.. They know now I've always got a certification in that area or just that even a little bit more separates you from other people. Just say Microsoft Office, a.
00;15;31;03 - 00;15;34;14
Jerry Ross
Bachelor's degree, is four years of experience in Microsoft.
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Brandon Street
Right? Yes, right. Exactly.
00;15;36;25 - 00;15;56;08
McKinley Hatch
I love the whole concept of show versus tell. Right. You want to show them in your resume, especially when we're diving into what we'll talk about next in our work experience. Want to show them what we're doing instead of telling them you're really good at this. Show them. Put in those numbers. We'll kind of talk about that. So, Brandon, why don't you tell us what the park rule is?
00;15;56;08 - 00;16;14;04
Brandon Street
Yeah, I'd love to. So this is an acronym we use in the in the SUU Career Center. And as we talk with students how to build these bullet points, bullet points are probably the hardest part of a resume to write, in my opinion. A lot of people just they don't know how to construct this area of of their resume.
00;16;14;06 - 00;16;29;27
Brandon Street
I think a lot of people think it should be a job description of what they did. But honestly, what employers want to know, again, what did you do on that job that translate to what you'd be doing here? Why does that make you why does what the skills and the knowledge and the experiences you had here help develop you into a great employer for our job?
00;16;30;04 - 00;16;53;20
Brandon Street
And so we use what we call the PARQ rule. And there's a two step process to this. One is, first, identify the purpose. So why are you even writing the bullet point that you are? What are you trying to communicate, number one, right? And then park PARQ stands for Power Verb Action results and Quantify. So I want to start each of my bullet points with the power verb right there.
00;16;53;24 - 00;17;11;21
Brandon Street
There can be lots of those types of things investigated, developed, manage. These are all strong and notice I use past past tense. We we usually coach in this this is different the resume world and you do what you're comfortable with but we usually coach to to right in the past tense even if it's a current job. So I've got the power verb.
00;17;11;21 - 00;17;26;04
Brandon Street
I want to tell them the action I took. If there's a positive result of that, actually I want to talk about that. And in any case that I can, I want to quantify what I did, put numbers to what you did to really showcase that what we talk about. Again, show not tell, Right?
00;17;26;06 - 00;17;41;17
Clara Webster
Yeah. And with bullet points, you want to kind of the mindset of not only showing just certain tasks that you completed at the job, but also what were the achievements from their employers like to see not only things that you did day to day, but what were some of the things you accomplished at that job?
00;17;41;20 - 00;18;01;29
Jerry Ross
And then really looking for results based employees. And I really love the PARQ rule because I feel like it gives us direction and they want to know, can you bring that same achievement level here where you are? Do you have a goal in mind or do you come in and work hard? Right. A lot of people are going to come in and work hard, but they love finding goal oriented people that achieve results.
00;18;01;29 - 00;18;09;23
Jerry Ross
And that starts with the first thing that we send them. The resume. When you have results and quantify on that, it gets you into the mindset.
00;18;09;25 - 00;18;27;06
McKinley Hatch
Yeah, something I see when I look at resumes is there putting past jobs from years ago at the very top right right under their summary section. What do we recommend to students about what you know, what order should they put their work experience in?
00;18;27;08 - 00;18;53;00
Clara Webster
Yeah. So with this, you want to use the reverse chronological order of putting jobs and and that goes for all the sections in here. Education and experience and reverse chronological is just the opposite of normal chronological. Right. So it's instead of, you know, all the way like very first to where you are now with reverse chronological you want to have your most recent or present job and then go backwards in time from there.
00;18;53;03 - 00;19;14;12
Brandon Street
And one thing I would suggest and you're talking about, you know, perhaps I'm changing careers or, you know, I've had my experience in a different area right? There are options in a resume to be creative or we can create a relevant experience section. So I'm not showcasing the first job I have as my, you know, my college job that I had if it was at McDonald's.
00;19;14;12 - 00;19;31;07
Brandon Street
I'm not showing them, hey, yeah, I want a job in accounting. Here's my McDonald's job. Right? But I can put a relevant experience section. I'm able to now put in my internships. I did an accounting. The first things are reading is what's relevant to that job. And then I can have another, you know, an other experience section that allows me still to talk about that I worked while.
00;19;31;07 - 00;19;37;09
Brandon Street
I was going to college and those things that are important that I learned from those, but it's not the first thing they see, right?
00;19;37;12 - 00;19;48;15
McKinley Hatch
So do you need it to be labeled relevant work experience, even if you don't have the other section on there out of curiosity? So you've done some jobs here and there, but they're not relevant to what you're doing, right?
00;19;48;21 - 00;19;48;25
Brandon Street
What do.
00;19;48;25 - 00;19;49;07
McKinley Hatch
You do in.
00;19;49;07 - 00;20;02;01
Brandon Street
That? Well, that's a good question. I mean, I would still name it relevant. I want that employer to understand these are the things I did that have to do with this job. Right. And there may be some other things, but these are the things I did for this job.
00;20;02;03 - 00;20;16;16
Jerry Ross
And one of the questions they may have is responsibility. So like we wanted to relate as close as we can, but if we don't have things that we can directly correlate, it does show responsibility. It shows ethic, it shows some other things that maybe they could use to help build the case for us to be an employee.
00;20;16;19 - 00;20;42;15
McKinley Hatch
Let's dive into the education section now. So we've talked about summary section, we've talked about the work experience section. Let's talk about the education section now. Where is that on a resume? I know we've talked in our office several times. Whether it matters if it's before or after work experience, let's dive into that and talk more about adding coursework and certifications under that section specifically.
00;20;42;17 - 00;21;10;10
Jerry Ross
So I highly recommend within one year of graduating from the college, your employment, your education history comes above your employment history. It's going to be a floor to getting you job. So if you don't have that degree, you might not be eligible for some of those positions. If you just have your high school diploma and you've got some work experience, I think high school could go below because it doesn't help them make a decision, whereas your work work history may help them make a decision to hire you.
00;21;10;13 - 00;21;26;09
Jerry Ross
The other thing that I personally experienced is people putting the year that they graduated high school, which could show age, which could eventually be held against the person making or not making the decision to bring you on. So I do not recommend putting date you graduated high school on your resume.
00;21;26;09 - 00;21;27;26
McKinley Hatch
They do even include high school?
00;21;28;01 - 00;21;43;21
Brandon Street
Well, yeah and you know, that's a good question because I you know, first of all what I suggest we always just say lead with your strengths, right? If you think your education is your strength still for that job, then put it next after your summary. Right. Then go into it. You know, employment history. If your employment history is your strength and put that next right.
00;21;43;21 - 00;22;00;22
Brandon Street
That's how typically I lead, you know, a students through that process. But high school the good question if I have if I have a degree in college, I'm not going to put my high school diploma. In fact, a lot of times, you know, I tell students it's inferred you have a high school diploma. I mean, you're in college right now, so I don't even have to put it as they're earning their degree.
00;22;00;22 - 00;22;15;20
Brandon Street
I just have them put, you know, the major in that. And when when the grad. But you bring up a great question, you know, as far as you know dates on because I get that question all the time should I put a date on my education? That depends. Right. This is going to be a personal decision. How long ago did you graduate?
00;22;15;27 - 00;22;31;22
Brandon Street
Do you feel like there may be a case that there could be some ageism, you know, discrimination there that's that's going to a personal choice. But but you just have to decide what the job you're applying for. How do I present my education? Is it with with that date or not?
00;22;31;22 - 00;23;05;25
Clara Webster
So yeah, and as far as adding other things into your education section, you know, the things you can highlight in there. Typically if you want to highlight, like if you have a really strong GPA that you want to show, if you've got any specific like certifications with your degree or even relevant coursework, you know, I recommend that for a lot of students that, you know, say they maybe don't have a ton of relevant like work experience, but they've taken courses in some areas that show, Hey, maybe I've never worked in this, but I've studied it, you know, I still know what I'm doing.
00;23;05;27 - 00;23;14;08
Clara Webster
And so there are cases where you can use even just your education, adding some bullet points there just to show either coursework or certifications that also help you.
00;23;14;10 - 00;23;37;09
McKinley Hatch
Yeah, Awesome. Thank you, guys. One more thing I want to note on this was with education. I feel like a lot of times I'll see students that put when they're going to graduate, what's the word I'm looking for you guys like they're expecting expected graduation. Yes. Wouldn't for a while We've talked about just to remove that and say April 2025.
00;23;37;09 - 00;23;39;21
McKinley Hatch
Yeah because it obviously hasn't happened yet.
00;23;39;21 - 00;23;54;12
Brandon Street
Right. Exactly. And if they put August 2025, I've had employers specifically say they don't need to put expect a graduation date on their I know if you put August 2025 what that means. Right. Like and so usually we just recommend just put that future date on there. They'll they can put that equation together pretty quickly Right.
00;23;54;12 - 00;24;11;12
Brandon Street
Of when you'll be done. But it is important to have that. What I know what some employers don't appreciate is I put the start date and then I put to present I now I have no idea when you're graduating I don't know if you graduated, when you're going to graduate. Right. And so so really, I think it's important just to put that that graduation date on there.
00;24;11;15 - 00;24;41;18
McKinley Hatch
Awesome. Yeah, I want to talk about that. So final touches on resume really quick. Let's talk about well, we talked about verb tenses already, so we're we're feeling good about that. But as far as having someone review it, we recommend to just have someone have their eyes on it. And we would recommend for you to come see one of us, a career coach or something, but have someone review that, whether it's current boss, if they know you're, you know, looking right.
00;24;41;18 - 00;24;45;29
McKinley Hatch
I don't, I don't know. Who would you say is good to to help review your resume?
00;24;46;00 - 00;25;05;18
Brandon Street
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, you find someone you trust. Obviously a career coach is always a great one. The nice thing about college is you don't have to pay for a career coach there, So come come and see us, you know, if we can help there. But but here's you know, one thing I'd say just really quickly to cover in your resume and I wanted to talk about this is consistency, right?
00;25;05;21 - 00;25;22;18
Brandon Street
We talk about formatting your resume and getting together. Whatever you do, just be consistent, whether you put periods on the end of all of your sentences, do it on all of them. The biggest mistakes we always see is periods on some, not periods on the others dates that are mentioned differently, format that's different or different size format or things.
00;25;22;21 - 00;25;28;25
Brandon Street
So consistency is the key. Whatever do you do on your essay. But yes, get it checked right. Have someone look over it.
00;25;29;00 - 00;25;52;22
Clara Webster
Yes. Yeah. I always tell students there is no such thing as a perfect resume. You know, I've seen resumes where they get passed through, you know, five different people in our office and everyone notices some little small detail that the person before didn't notice and the person after didn't, you know. So. So, you know, just make sure to get it reviewed by at least one other person and, you know, make sure that you're being consistent throughout with your resume.
00;25;52;25 - 00;26;10;18
Jerry Ross
You know something? I just thought of that we haven't brought up yet is contact. And I remember when I had a position open recently, I had one of my top three candidates did not provide the correct phone number. and if you can't give me amazing, precise details at the beginning, I am not going to hunt you down.
00;26;10;21 - 00;26;26;18
Jerry Ross
So maintaining that your phone number and your email address are perfect is one of the most important things that you can check on your resume. You may be able to miss a comma here or be off on something else. But but if when an employer goes to contact you and it's not you, they're not going to search you down.
00;26;26;21 - 00;26;27;13
Brandon Street
That's true.
00;26;27;16 - 00;26;44;25
Clara Webster
Yeah. And with that, make sure you've got a professional email address. I've seen since pretty crazy ones. Last week I had a so-and-so jedi at gmail.com on the resume and. Yeah, So may the force be with them. Yes. Yeah, I told you. Yeah. I said, Good luck.
00;26;44;28 - 00;26;49;20
Brandon Street
Gets this job. You will give me a job. Right. Waving the hand.
00;26;49;22 - 00;26;55;28
Clara Webster
yes. Yeah. So just make sure you're being professional and accurate with your contact information.
00;26;56;04 - 00;26;58;21
Jerry Ross
If they leave and come back. Is it return of the job?
00;26;58;23 - 00;27;05;04
Brandon Street
Oh my. They're. We're supposed to leave the dad jock to the end of the podcast.
00;27;05;06 - 00;27;07;00
Clara Webster
I love this.
00;27;07;02 - 00;27;32;25
McKinley Hatch
Okay, This is our last little thing I want to talk about was customized in your resume for different industries. So we've talked about being creative in your resume, right? Claire had mentioned the photos and the colors and all of that, but we know that there are some industries out there that do actually require a photo and some that absolutely will throw your resume away if they have a photo on there.
00;27;32;25 - 00;27;40;09
McKinley Hatch
So tell us what those industries are and how to go about making resumes for industry specifics.
00;27;40;11 - 00;28;01;16
Clara Webster
Yes. Yeah. So just like you said, there are some industries say like kind of more of the professional, like government law accounting, you know, some of those ones that seem a bit more formal, you know, those are ones if you've got a picture on there straight in the trash, you know, not going to make it very far. But there are ones like if you're ever applying for we have a lot of theater students on campus.
00;28;01;16 - 00;28;24;28
Clara Webster
So if you're ever applying for like acting or modeling type positions, those are ones where a picture would be required because that's a big part of your job is, you know what you look like. Other ones like graphic design majors before, you know where I said you don't really want to stand out a lot with color if you're going into an industry where that's how you stand out is with it, with design and color, you will want to do the same with your resume.
00;28;25;00 - 00;28;41;09
Clara Webster
And so those are just kind of some examples there of where resumes will be a little bit more creative, maybe have a picture on there. But for the most part, other ones you'll want to have kind of that one column. Not a lot of color, no picture, pretty straightforward resume there.
00;28;41;16 - 00;28;58;07
Brandon Street
You know, Claire brings up a really good point. And something I want to end with is I think it's really important for you to understand whatever we've told you today, There's always an exception to the rule. And what I mean by that is we're going off of what standard and resume writing and standard, what you should be doing.
00;28;58;07 - 00;29;14;24
Brandon Street
And a lot of employers, most employers say, but if an employer tells you to write your resume on purple paper before you take it in and you know they want you to do that, then do it right. Like, but most are not going to tell you that. But my point is, is that you know, there's a lot of these things we're telling you today that if you hear different from an employer, they should trump what we say, right?
00;29;14;26 - 00;29;21;11
Brandon Street
They should you should follow the instructions they have for you very closely and make sure that you provide them what they've asked for.
00;29;21;13 - 00;29;42;11
Jerry Ross
Yeah, I've seen positions online where they say, even though you've already uploaded your resume, we still want you to fill out the information on our application section. So this is your opportunity to prove how well you can follow the details of what this job is. And I think employers are intentionally adding some of those extra details to see if you're going to read it.
00;29;42;11 - 00;29;44;28
Jerry Ross
And are you going to be detail oriented from the beginning.
00;29;45;05 - 00;29;56;16
Clara Webster
And with that, if you see one of those where they want you to put in the information again, 99% of the time they'll have an ATS system with it too. So just keep that in mind when you're filling that out.
00;29;56;19 - 00;30;22;06
McKinley Hatch
We've learned a lot today about resumes and how to get seen by employers. So hopefully you've learned a lot today and that you'll spend some time a little extra today looking over your resume and editing it and getting people to review it with you. So thanks for tuning in to our podcast today. And of course we are signing off with a dad joke that Claire is going to read for us.
00;30;22;08 - 00;30;34;28
Clara Webster
All right, so this one's a real knee slapper. I managed to get a good job working for pool. Wow. For a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining.
00;30;35;01 - 00;30;39;23
Brandon Street
yes, I could see that. I could see you.
00;30;39;25 - 00;30;40;28
McKinley Hatch
See you next week.