Karen's Blog

The first person you will need to negotiate salary with is your own self. Before looking at what the world out there will pay you, let’s look at three questions from an internal perspective:

1. What do you need?
People often hedge on this one because they worry about losing out if they “need too much,” but here’s the truth of it -> One of the most crushing things you can do to your spirit is take a job that doesn’t pay you what you need – because you work hard all day and come home to bills you still can’t pay. You continually are falling behind. So understand what you need. Even if you don’t tell anyone else, Know it for yourself. Sit down with a piece of paper and write out your monthly expenses. What do you need to keep up, take care of you and yours?

What you need is not an argument for why a company should pay you a certain salary. If the value you bring to the table isn’t enough to merit the pay, just because you need it won’t matter – however, “what you need” is a very valid argument for walking away from the table – which may be a very scary thought so think about it now, not in the interview.

Next (Part 2)

2. What do you want?

3. What are you worth?

When I create a resume for a client, I think strategically about how one’s resume will be read and have come to recognize that a resume gets read (at least) 3 different ways. I don’t think very many people know/consider this.

1) The first read is when all the resumes received are being quickly scanned to ascertain which are actual contenders/candidates with the prerequisites for the position. This scan will be looking for key words and credentials that move one’s resume out of the general stack and into the sorted pile of potential candidates. The format of the resume should make this scan eye friendly so that the key words and credentials are quickly and easily identified by the reader.

2) The second read will be a bit more in-depth to determine if they want to call and/or set up an interview. The reader (either consciously or unconsciously) will be looking for where you add value and solutions to the organization. There is no single approach for this, but this is where one’s use of the CAR (challenge, action, result) storytelling can come into play.

3) The third read will happen as the interviewer prepares for the interview and/or during the interview. Every item on the resume should serve as potential to lead to a positive talking point. It isn’t necessary for all the details to be on the resume but enough should be there so that it supports the interview conversation.

When creating one’s resume, one wants to keep each of these three different scenarios in mind, so that the resume is strong through each one.

Tags: accomplishments, bullet points, credentials, format, get a job, get an interview, how do I get a job, interview, key words, keywords, read my resume, resume

For non-working parents or disabled individuals; these are people who are dealing with a distraction or a limitation, so they would be better served by work where they get paid by the piece or project completed as opposed to work where their pay is determined by the amount of time they put in.

The best way to find piece work is to research and contact businesses local to you who might have that kind of work. By looking locally, you’ll make a connection with the business owner/decision-maker who is then more likely to entrust you with an important link in their production. Also, by targeting local businesses, you’ll be in a better position to evaluate their reliability/legitimacy.

For a disabled person, with no distractions, who has good energy and a clear mind but limited mobility, one option might be telephone answering/operator and customer support centers who contract out to homeworkers.

The Social Security Department has a Work Incentives Planning and Assistance program as well as their “Ticket to Work” program. The link below gives an introduction to what Social Security offers including these two programs:
Working While Disabled – How SSA Can Help

In my business as a resume writer, one of my serious pet peeves is the blurbs that ridicule people’s resume writing attempts. You may or may not have seen them, they make the rounds of emails and get published as filler in career magazines and campus newspapers.

They are presented with the attitude of “You’d never make such a stupid mistake,” but the real end result is they teach false rules that interfere with true communication. I’ve had prospective clients burst into tears while talking to me and afraid no employer would ever hire them – all because they were trying to abide by some resume-writing-rule that limited their ability to tell their story.

Context is at least as important as grammer. If the writer does not provide context, then the reader will. Perfect grammar alone does not make good writing. Writing is about communication. Sometimes a colloquialism will make the right connection with the reader. Grammar is a tool, not the master.

Selected as “Best Answer” to a question in the Resume Writing Category at LinkedIn
Link to Linkedin entry

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What a good resume does is capture the “voice” of the person it represents, so that when they show up for the interview it is as if they are sitting down to continue a conversation that has already been happening in the mind of the reader. You want your resume to be “transparent,” so that the reader can see YOU through the resume.

I am a professional resume writer. What makes someone like me valuable is my objectivity and experience. I can get past an individual’s inner critic (the one that tries to filter and plays it “too safe”). I listen for those “jewels” that a person may not recognize as valuable or not know how to present in an appropriate fashion.

I will see phrases I came up with to resolve a particular “perceived problem” show up in other resumes. People DO use phrases because they sound good. There are hundreds of books full of resume phrases, so I don’t take it too badly, but I realize people who use phrase books will lose their voice and not realize they picked a phrase that was actually in there to solve a “conflict”

For example, I had a client who had just graduated from The Citadel who wanted to join the military proper and hoped to land in one of the elite forces. He had been a leader in many wilderness expeditions in civilian life. Our concern was – becuase the military has a tight hierarchy – we wanted to get across he could lead, but he knew where the boundaries were. I wrote the phrase “Can step in when a leader is needed,” to get across this subtle message.

Someone else could use that phrase in a resume – it sounds good – but they are probably not going to understand the nuance behind it. When they show up for the interview, they might be too brash or just “off” in relation to what they cut’n'pasted. They are not lying, but they are missing an opportunity to reveal their own true self.

“They say that one must have good communication skills to excel in whatever they want to do or achieve.” Ironically, this statement sounds good but falls apart upon closer inspection.

First, it is too generic. It might be similar to say “to get somewhere, one needs to be able to travel.” That form of travel, if you are a human, might be by airplane, train, car, walking, bicycle, by boat, or even crawling. All of these will get you somewhere and also reflect on preferences (mode of travel by choice) and abilities (mode of travel by resources available) and the terrain one is faced with. Add in something like a heavy load – do you need a backpack? do you need a shopping cart? do you need a van? etc.

“Good communication skills” is really about the ability to connect with one’s audience to achieve one’s goal. Hopefully, a fundamental of that goal will include some humanitarian or even altruistic element but that is not a prerequisite to the definition.

Communicating well with no substance speaks to a poverty of the soul or a loss of trust/faith. “Communicating with no substance” is another way of saying lying. People ultimately are lying out of fear – lying first to themselves and then to their audience. Someone who lies already believes they are broken somehow (or their audience is – for example, one might lie to hide a situation from an entity they don’t trust).

If you believe you are dealing with someone who is communicating well with no substance, the question to ask is why? why are they keeping their truth from you? or are they keeping it from themselves?

Along other lines, some people do NOT communicate “well” with humans but communicate brilliantly with machines or mathematics, for example. These people certainly have the SME you are looking for and can be quite successful but not demonstrate the social elements you expect. Oftentimes, organizations that rely on these brilliant people will also bring aboard intermediaries that help integrate the contributions of the brilliant but socially introverted into a dynamic organization.

In the end, there is no ONE perfect type of contributor. From what I’ve seen, the more successful organizations have a leadership that values the diverse contributions of each its members, and values those contributions in such a manner that no one group/type feels superior over the others.

I know there are organizations who encourage internal competition – some are famous for it. As a career coach, I also know these organizations often lose their most valuable people when they invoke this kind of environment. Out of my own curiousity, I’ve followed some of the companies of my clients after my clients have left and, having information that enables me to read between the lines, I am often able to predict a company’s decline even as their star appears to be shining bright.

Selected as Best Answer to a question in the Resume Writing category of LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/answers/career-education/resume-writing/CAR_RSW/229871-13686315

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The objective of an employer is to ensure one has the qualifications to do the job they are hiring for. If one has some solid work experience in the field already, showing their hons (or for Americans, their GPA) becomes less important and so, it can be left off the resume completely while being ready to provide it (with explanation) if the prospective employer requests it.

The querent asked:

I am concerned that my resume is being misread/misunderstood by recruiters and I think I need a better way of describing my British degrees. How should one go about describing the degree class? Should rough equivalents be included? How do you calculate an equivalent between one system which awards perfect scores (4.0) and another which may consider 70% to be a really really good score?

Examples:

- I have a BEng (2:1 hons), I am concerned that this is being interpreted as a 2.1 GPA

- I have an MSc which in simple terms is just pass/fail, obviously I passed but there is no GPA or other grade to speak of

- I spent three years working on a Phd but was unable to submit a thesis. As this was a British Phd you don’t spend the first two years taking classes and getting a Masters etc, it’s essentially three years of self directed research from day one.

Hints and tips?

In the querent’s case, because they had graduate level studies (both a Masters and an almost completed Ph.D.), their 2:1 hons (or a student’s GPA while attaining their undergraduate degree) is not really required. In their case, because the 2:1 hons seems to be creating more problems than it solves, I would recommend leaving it off. Also, from wikipedia, the 2:1 hons is good but not outstanding so bending over backwards to show it might be counterproductive.

Here is how I would present their education on a resume for an American audience:

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

EDUCATION

Ph.D/ABT*, [area of study], [educational institution], [years]

M.Sc., [area of study], [educational institution], [years or year awarded]

B.Eng., [educational institution], [years or year awarded]

* All But Thesis
(ABT is a standard abbreviation but not everyone knows it so I would include the footnote)

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Variation 1: If Ph.D. studies were less than ABT – for example, if one had completed one year of studies towards your Ph.D., then list it as:

Doctoral Studies, [field of study], [educational institution], [years]

Variation 2: If a person with a British B.Eng. but no graduate level work were writing their resume, and they wanted to include their honors, then they would want to give some kind of translation for an American audience; for example:

B.Eng., [educational institution], [years or year awarded]
* 2:1 hons (top 40% of graduating class)

(percentage pulled from wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_undergraduate_degree_classification

A recently released study out of Columbia University, as reported by the Chicago Times, says:

People who lost stable jobs in 1982 suffered an immediate 30 percent drop in their earnings, according to Social Security and other government records. As a group, they never recovered.

A decade later, their earnings were down 20 percent compared with workers with similar profiles who avoided a layoff. After 15 years, they made 10 percent less. Even 20 years down the road, they hadn’t caught up.

I am not going to quarrel with the results of this study, however I am going to talk about the reason “why” I think this happens, based on my own 15 years of observation . A permanent drop in salary standing because one has been laid off is not inevitable.

What I’ve encountered repeatedly with my clients who are laid off is that they reverse their job search back to the last position or time they felt safe. That can be as simple as discounting their experience from their last job – even if it was years worth and successful; to psychologically fleeing all the way back to when they were just out of college, as if they have to start all over again from scratch.

I respect the research that went into the study (link below) but it works off statistics alone and overlooks the emotional-psychological component. Getting laid off is often akin to getting whacked hard by a heavy plank of wood. Worse is when the person laid off doesn’t recognize that they are wounded and then takes the fact they can’t just bounce back as a sign that they are defective somehow. Family and friends often make things worse, often with good intentions.

Wounds heal, but they need time. One can conduct a job search while the wound is still fresh, but one needs the equivalent of a salve for the pain and something to protect that part of the psyche that is still open and vulnerable. Without that, the laid off worker will only seek employment at a level where they know they cannot fail … often way beneath their capability. This is a loss not only to the worker but to the economic infrastructure as well; all that talent going to waste, unused.

So, what is the salve and what is the bandage?

The salve comes in the form of positive validation. The laid off worker can start by making a list of what they believe they do well & where they feel good about themselves (whether or not it makes money, i.e. some answers include how one is a good parent, etc.). Another thing is to follow up with former work colleagues, laying the groundwork to use them as references but also to ask them what they liked best about working with you. Instead of seeking sympathy, tell them you are writing your resume and wonder what they think your strengths are. Hearing it from respected colleagues goes a long way to restoring confidence in oneself.

The bandage comes in the form of being and feeling prepared. Target your job search. You’ve probably scrolled through craigslist and found every job you could do; now go back through and pick out the ones you WANT to do. There should be only a handful, 3 to 7 – be choosy. Now research those employers and think about why they need someone like you AND what you’d ENJOY doing for them. When you catch yourself smiling, you’re on track to both being and feeling prepared.

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REFERENCES:

Article by Greg Burns published by the Chicago Tribune, May 25, 2009
Laid off? You’ll likely never make as much

Study (PDF) co-researched by Till von Wachter, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Columbia University

Long-Term Earnings Losses due to Mass-Layoffs During the 1982 Recession: An Analysis Using Longitudinal Administrative Data from 1974 to 2004
(joint with Jae Song and Joyce Manchester)

Selected as Best Answer to a question in the Resume Writing category at LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/answers/career-education/resume-writing/CAR_RSW/230941-22448691

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Don’t waste the reader’s time. If it sounds trite to you, it will sound trite and insincere to the reader.

I don’t know your specific situation so let me outline some typical scenarios:

1. You don’t know anything about the company and/or are sending out mass quantities of your resume (I actually don’t recommend this approach but many of my peers do, so let’s make the best of the situation).

Let your resume do the heavy lifting here. In your cover letter, be brief – i.e. “I saw your job posting for XYZ at ABC and am forwarding my resume for your consideration. Please call me at (555-555-5555) or email me at jh@jh.com if you have any questions or wish to schedule an interview. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, JH

That’s it! why? you really don’t have anything to say that isn’t already covered in your resume.

the key pieces here that an employer wants to know:

a) what job are you applying for
b) how did you hear about it
c) contact information in the body of the letter – only give ONE phone number so that the person doesn’t feel obligated to call every number you give
d) always say THANK YOU!!! (I can’t emphasize this enough)

2) You are writing individual cover letters to a limited list of employers/job opportunities which fit the parameters of what would make you happy in your career (ideal!)

Dig a little deeper into each companies current activities. Go to their website and read their recent press releases. Look at what they are doing locally to where you are from local business or regular news sources. Think about how “what you do” is or can be a solution to what they are doing right now (from the press releases or local news). Whether you guess perfectly or not, write your best guess as to what they are doing right now and how you can be a solution for them. Even if you guess wrong, you’ll show you are thinking. What you write won’t sound trite and will be unique, giving them an opportunity to see what you are made of before you come through the door. If you are feeling enthusiastic and sincere about what you are writing, that will come through. (If you are feeling blase and depressed about it, you might reconsider if you really want to work for that company or what direction you are taking with them.)