Podcast appearances and mentions of jenny foss

As a girl, Jenny Foss was convinced she'd grow up to become a California beach lifeguard. But that's NOT what she's known for. Jenny Foss is the voice of JobJenny.com and widely respected LinkedIn Learning teacher – most recently to the author Do This, Not That: Career: What to Do (and NOT Do) in 75+ Difficult Workplace Situations She's seen it ALL and her no nonsense insights provide the easy untangling of workplace stitches, will spare you hours, days, and nights obsessing over. In this episode you'll find out: What's the latest rethink around our collective careers How & why “traditional” coaching and curriculum-based career coaching are not mutually exclusive. Why her book: Do This. Not That: Career will help you get your Ph.D. in career management. How this book is uniquely formatted for immediate solutions and longer-term guidance. Jenny's Do This, Not That to determine if you should stay or go in your current role. For hidden job market insider tips and stories subscribe to Loren's newsletter here: "Out of Hiding" Newsletter Connect with Jenny Foss: Book: https://www.jobjenny.com/do-this-not-that Website: https://www.jobjenny.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyfoss/ Connect with Loren: Website: https://www.portfoliorocket.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorengreiff/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/portfoliorocket/ Email: Loren@portfoliorocket.com

Have you ever wondered what I am supposed to do and more importantly, not supposed to do at work? What questions are acceptable to ask? Am I really supposed to negotiate for a raise, and if so, what in the world do I say? In this episode, Jenny Foss, CEO of JobJenny.com and author of Do This, Not That: Career has got you covered with all the do's and don'ts for your tough workplace situations. Links Do This, Not That: Career book JobJenny website LEAVE US A REVIEW Leave us an honest rating and review, pretty please. Head to the podcast player you're listening to this episode in to leave us a review or you can click here to leave a review for Everyone's Talkin' Money podcast on Apple Podcasts.  Love this episode. Share it with a few friends so they can learn these valuable money concepts as well. Be sure to FOLLOW and SUBSCRIBE to never miss an episode! GOT A QUESTION? Have a Shannah Shares question? Submit your question here https://bit.ly/shannahshares MORE MONEY TIPS Follow Me on Instagram for more money tips and behind-the-scenes information https://www.instagram.com/shannahgame Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jenny Foss is an expert job search and career coach. She's also a LinkedIn Learning creator and the author of a new book:  Do This, Not That: Careers. Jenny launched JobJenny.com in 2010, a website that features online courses, blogs, and kits to help provide clarity and advice on job searching. The post 1098:  What It's Like to Be a Job Search Expert With Jenny Foss, JobJenny.com [Main T4C Episode] appeared first on Time4Coffee.

Do This, Not That: Career: What to Do (and NOT Do) in 75+ Difficult Workplace Situations by Jenny Foss Jobjenny.com A must-have step-by-step guide on what to do (and what NOT to do) in the workplace featuring clear instructions and helpful scripts so you can deal with any unexpected situation at work. How do you deal with a difficult boss who is always unavailable? How should you handle a coworker who never completes their portion of a project on schedule? How can you establish a strong work-life balance when starting a new job? The workplace can be full of challenging situations and no matter how passionate, frustrated, excited, or downright angry you feel, it's important to stay polite and professional. Whether you struggle with finding the right words or simply aren't sure how to approach a topic, Do This, Not That: Career is here to help! This book gives you the tools you need to move forward productively so you can learn when to let go and move on. You'll find more than 75 common workplace issues that cover everything from your first day on the job to your last. For each situation, discover what to do and what to avoid, then learn exactly how to make it happen. Find tips to reframe your thinking, simple scripts to help you figure out what to say, and even advice on your next steps depending on your initial response. Do This, Not That: Career is your one-stop-shop to handling any situation that work throws your way so you can prepare yourself for a successful career.

I'm talking to my friend Jenny Foss who is a Job Search Strategist who has been in the game for quite a while helping people navigate job searches, advance their careers, and make career pivots.   We start with how to bridge the gap between the job you have and the job you want. Jenny shares the secrets of what makes a great resume and I'll give you a spoiler, it is not Times New Roman, on 1-inch margins, on one-page. She has way more useful advice than that.   At the end of our conversation, Jenny breaks down a step-by-step process to ask someone and conduct a successful informational interview.    I've always hated writing cover letters, but Jenny walked me through a simple framework for writing a cover letter so they don't sound generic and actually showcase your value as a candidate.   I hope you enjoy my conversation with the career consultant and newly published author of Do This, Not That Career….Jenny Foss.   Key Takeaways: How to job craft your current role How to bridge the gap between the job you have and the job you want What makes a great resume How to write a compelling cover letter How to make sure your resume makes it through resume scanning software Use information interviews to land a job with your dream company How to share your accomplishments without coming across as bragging Are pay transparency laws working?   Mentions: Using Job Crafting to Increase Your Career Satisfaction l E21 Dr. Benjamin Ritter - www.tsirpodcast.com/21   More of Jenny: Do This, Not That: Career: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Do-This-Not-That-Career/Jenny-Foss/Do-This-Not-That/9781507219669 LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-ask-make-most-informational-interview-jenny-foss/?trackingId=ySRyz0xfS9acXbdDF6XVEQ%3D%3D Website: www.jobjenny.com   More of The Struggle is Real: Find show notes and more at https://www.tsirpodcast.com/ Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tsirpod/

Thinking holistically about your job search can be the difference between landing your next fantastic position and staying in job-search purgatory. Jenny Foss, job search strategist and career coach behind JobJenny.com – and author of the upcoming book Do This Not That: Career – joined Andrew for a deep dive into how you can take a 10,000-foot view of your job search and set yourself up for success. BONUS: Listeners brought their questions about developing a job search strategy directly to Andrew and Jenny on Get Hired Live. You can watch a replay of that conversation by clicking here. Follow Jenny on LinkedIn Follow Andrew on LinkedIn and join the Get Hired community at https://lnkd.in/ghpodcast

 She's a Career Consultant/Resume Writer/Entrepreneur/Social Media Strategist/Blogger, helping people advance their careers through defining and communicating their personal brands effectively for over 4 years now with JobJenny, all while running her firm, the Oregon-based Ladder Recruiting Group which specializes in the robotics/automation and manufacturing sectors.   She's also a regular columnist on theMuse.com, knows a lot about robots, and makes a mean margarita!        

Unemployment can be one of the greatest stressors in a person's life. Combined with a global pandemic and economic uncertainty, it's no wonder that a record number of Americans are reporting anxiety and toxic stress. Jenny Foss, the CEO of JobJenny talks about the steps we should take now to be job ready and the psychological framework it takes to survive unemployment.

On today’s episode, Emilie chats with recruiter-turned-career-expert, Jenny Foss, on how to find and collaborate with recruiters to land your next job.Related Links:Learn more about Jenny  Foss’s work hereCheck out Jenny’s LinkedIn Learning CoursesEp 220: How to Nail a Virtual InterviewGrab Your 2021 LifeTracker PlannerJoin Bossed Up’s Courage Community on FacebookThis episode is sponsored by Modern Fertility.

Many times, there isn’t a straight line from your first career to becoming a career coach. This isn’t a bad thing, and it can lead to some really great opportunities; but not everyone sees or understands the potential benefits. Jenny Foss was one that didn’t take a straight line in her life in general, so her mom called her a unicorn. Jenny shares how she used her unique skills and approach to life and careers to transition from journalism to career coach to adding other career services. To binge-listen to all the Career Coach episodes: https://www.happentoyourcareer.com/how-to-become-a-career-coach-podcast/ Or check our our Professional Career Coach Training program

"Dr. Dawn on Careers" is back LIVE every Thursday at 12ET taking your calls ALL hour on any and all career and job search topics! This week, Dr. Dawn welcomed Job Jenny (aka, Jenny Foss) to share her career expertise with listeners. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As the professional world begins to lean on technology more and more, companies are embracing online interviewing.  In today’s episode, Emilie chats with Jenny Foss, a former recruiter turned career strategist and the voice behind the popular blog JobJenny.com, all about how to ace your next online interview. Related Links: Learn more about Jenny at JobJenny.com  Download our FREE resource The Ultimate Job Search Guide For The Modern Woman Register for HIRED, our job search accelerator Webinar Replay: Job Searching Amid COVID19 Uncertainty Join Bossed Up’s Courage Community on Facebook  Got a career conundrum or #bossmoves moment you want to share on the podcast? Call and leave a voicemail for Emilie NOW at 910-668-BOSS(2677). 

Jenny Foss is an expert in job transitions.  Years ago, when she suddenly found herself a single parent, she did the last thing that many of us would consider doing: starting her own business.  I'll let her tell that story and some of the very smart reasons for that decision.  But that eventually propelled her to where she is now combining her experience in writing, marketing, and recruitment to help job seekers make their transitions at jobjenny.com.   Jenny is great at what she does, and, as you'll hear, she's such a kind and open person.  We talk about her story and how she's gotten to where she is today, how to get untangled when you feel stuck and unsure of where you're going, what makes a great resume, and so much more.   Show notes at themeaningmovement.com/jenny

We recorded our 100th episode live in our hometown of Portland, in front of about 100 of our closest friends, and it was a wonderful night. If you were there, reminisce with the full audio. If you missed it, you're in luck - we captured all the audio in this podcast!  Take a listen.  About Our Guest: Jared Mees Jared Mees is cofounder of Tender Loving Empire, a local-focused record label and collection of stores featuring handmade goods. Jared is a musician and art lover who turned his passion into his career. More from this episode: Crowd favorite and expert career coach Jenny Foss, a.k.a. JobJenny, spoke to Mac and soundly defeated Ben in a friendly round of career trivia. Live music and a chat with Freddy Trujillo, who wrote our podcast theme song. Real people got onstage to share their experiences with job searching, job loss, and more. The Mac’s List team recalled their favorite moments from the past 99 weekly shows.

Your cover letter is one of the most important elements of your application--perhaps as important as your resume. This is where you outline your passion for the position and make the case for why you are the best candidate for the job. Unfortunately, too many job seekers undervalue and underthink their cover letter. Sometimes they fail to include a cover letter in their application. More often--but equally detrimental--they use the same generic, cookie-cutter cover letter for all their applications. This simply doesn’t cut it. On this bonus episode of Find Your Dream Job, Jenny Foss, founder of JobJenny.com, shares how your generic cover letter reads to a hiring manager.  Her entertaining, “what-not-to-write” cover letter hits home with insights on how you can improve your own cover letter right away. When you read your cover letter from a hiring manager’s point of view it starts to read differently than when you are reading it for yourself. Jenny reminds us not to regurgitate the content of our resumes into our cover letters and to not waste the hiring manager’s time with worn out cliches like “detail-oriented” and “proven track record.” You can find more useful job search insight in Land Your Dream Job Anywhere, now available on Amazon. To preview the first chapter for free, visit www.macslist.org/anywhere. Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com.

On this bonus episode of Find Your Dream Job, Jenny Foss, owner of JobJenny.com shares her tips for how to touch base with potential employers (without being a pest) after you’ve had your initial interview.   She reads “The Best Ways to Follow Up After The Interview”, her contribution to our book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond). Here are Jenny’s top tips to stay top-of-mind with employers: Know the next steps. Ask the employers about the process and timeline so you know the best way to follow-up. Send thank you notes. A simple, but often ignored way to be remembered, especially if you send them to the right people. Connect on LinkedIn. Create a reason to connect on LinkedIn so you can have ongoing dialog with the interviewer. Just don’t make rookie mistakes when you connect. Follow-up by email. Know when and how to reach out for updates. Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live and work in a foreign country? More people than ever are living and working outside the country where they were born. According to the United Nations, the number of international migrants now stands at a record 232 million people. That’s a significant increase since 1990. For many of these people the move to a new country is permanent; for others, it may be a temporary stay for a year or two. This week on Find Your Dream Job, we talk about how to find work outside the United States. Our guest is Marcelle Yeager a career coach and recruiter with deep experience in international employment. Marcelle shares tips for how to find and land work opportunities throughout the world. In this 35-minute episode you will learn: First steps in looking for a job overseas. Networking tips for overseas opportunities. Cultural challenges you may face when working abroad. The most high-demand jobs for American expats. This week’s guest: Marcelle Yeager (@careervalet | LinkedIn) President, CareerValet Washington, D.C. Listener question of the week:  I want to move across country, but I can’t afford to relocate without first having a job lined up. Do you have any advice on how to “woo” employers from 2,000 miles away? Answering our question this week is our guest co-host, Jenny Foss of jobjenny.com. If you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode, please contact Jenna Forstrom, Mac’s List Community Manager at jenna@macslist.org. Resources from this week’s show: Find Your Dream Job Podcast: Remote Work, Telecommuting, and Digital Nomads Nomadic Matt's "Working Overseas" JobJenny.com RileyGuide.com InternWeb.com IHIPO.com CareerValet.com Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. — Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com.

You may want a gig with a cool corporation like Nike, Google, or Apple. Perhaps you’ve targeted a big government agency or a nonprofit. Or maybe your goal is to land a job with small employer. Wherever you’re going, one day you will send your resume to a human resources (HR) department. For many job seekers the human resources department can seem like a black hole–a place where applications disappear without a trace. But there is a science to working with HR; and, when you know how the process works, a human resources department can be your gateway to a great job. This week on Find Your Dream Job Mac gets the inside scoop from long-time HR professional, Melissa Anzman. After 13 years in corporate human resources, Melissa started a new career as a career advisor, author, and business coach.  Melissa shares her tips on how to navigate the HR hiring process and make it work to your advantage. In this 38-minute episode you will learn: How to get your foot in the door with an HR department What HR is looking for in candidates, resumes, and cover letters How your interview with HR is different from your interview with the hiring manager How to make HR representatives your advocate in a job search Why you shouldn’t try to work around the proscribed HR hiring process This week’s guest: Melissa Anzman (@melissaanzman)Principal, Launch YourselfAuthor of How to Land a Job: Secrets from an HR InsiderCopper Mountain, Colo. Listener question of the week:  How should I prepare to negotiate my salary? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: GlassDoor.com Salary.com Launch Yourself Tips for Writing Post-Interview Thank You Notes How to Interview For your Audience STAR Interviewing Response Techniques How to Land a Job: Secrets from an HR Insider Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. -- FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard:    This is "Find Your Dream Job", a podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and our book "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond". To learn more about the book and the updated edition that we're publishing in February, visit macslist.org/ebook. Thanks for joining us today. This week on "Find Your Dream Job", we're talking about how to work with an employer's human resources department. You may want a gig with a cool corporation like Nike, Google, or Apple. Perhaps, you've targeted a big government agency or a nonprofit or maybe your goal is to land a job with a small employer. Wherever you're going, one day you will send your resume to a human resources, or HR, department. Many employers rely on human resources staff to advertise, accept, and screen all job applications. Before you get to see a hiring manager, you may have an interview with someone in human resources. Should you try to go around the human resources office and talk to a hiring manager directly? What do you do if the HR people never call you back? This week, we'll talk about these and other questions with longtime human resources insider, Melissa Anzman. She'll share her secrets for what you need to do when working with an HR department, but first, let's start as we do every week by checking in with the Mac's List team, Ben Forstag and Cecilia Bianco. How are you two doing this week? Ben Forstag:       I'm doing good, Mac. Cecilia Bianco:  Doing really good. Mac Prichard: All right. It's good to see you both. Now, in your careers, have you two applied for jobs through human resources departments? What happened next if you did? Ben Forstag:       I remember back before email when sometimes on job listings they would say, "Hand deliver your resume and cover letter to the human resources department." I remember a really cold winter afternoon in Cleveland, Ohio where I went downtown, went into a big office building to drop off a resume, and I got to the human resources department. No one was there. The door was open. There was a counter, the lights were on, but no one would respond when I was asking like, "Hello? Anyone here?" I ended up just leaving my resume on the counter and walking out. Mac Prichard:       You didn't write at the top, "One we must interview"? Ben Forstag: That would have probably gotten me better results than I got. Mac Prichard: Okay. Ben Forstag: The results I did get were ... No one ever called me back. Mac Prichard:   Oh. Well, that sounds like a pretty lonely place. Ben Forstag:      Yeah. Maybe it was good that I missed that opportunity. Mac Prichard:   Yeah. How about you, Cecilia? Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. I've done some online applications to HR departments, but I've never really heard back from them and I never get contact back until I've tracked down a hiring manager on LinkedIn or however you can find 'em. Mac Prichard:   Yeah. I've had the most success with hiring managers. As Ben was telling his story, a memory that came to mind was going Downtown before a deadline on a Friday afternoon and dropping off my application. It was at the reception desk. The receptionist had two large boxes and they were filled with dozens of resumes and packets. I never heard back from them, either. Ben Forstag:   Was one box labeled "Yes" and the other one labeled "No"? Mac Prichard:    No, they were kind enough to wait until the doors were closed to do the sorting. We'll talk about human resources departments because there are ways you can work with them effectively. Melissa knows how to do that and she's going to be sharing that with us. First, let's turn to you, Ben. Every week, you're sharing with us different resources you've found. What have you located this week on the internet? Ben Forstag:    Today, we're going to be talking about the website Glassdoor.com. Now, I know we've mentioned this in passing last week, but I think this resource deserves a little bit more attention. We're going to spend a few minutes just chatting about it. Mac and Cecilia, have you guys ever used Glassdoor.com in your own job search or for some other research purpose? Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. I actually look at it all the time. Sometimes to see what employers are posting on Mac's List and making sure they're legitimate. It's just a great resource overall to find out about your local job market. Mac Prichard:   I've looked at it too as part of my research to figure out what are good salary ranges for the Portland market. As you know ... In addition to Mac's List, I run a public relations company and I want to make sure that I'm offering the best and most competitive salaries I can. Glassdoor is a great way of helping to determine that. Ben Forstag:       Sure. Like many things, Glassdoor has its pros and its cons. I want to sort my conversation today around the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good thing about Glassdoor.com is this is an opportunity to get a sneak peek inside the culture, the salaries, the benefit plans, and the general office environment in lots of different companies. You can go onto the site, you type in a company name, you type in a city, and it spits out a lot of information about what people are getting paid at the organization in general terms, whether they like their office environment, whether they would recommend the job to a friend or a colleague and so forth. You can see the salary ranges for different job titles both nationally and specific to your city. As we know, the same job title could have vastly different salaries in New York City versus Portland, for example. You can learn about the hiring procedures through people who have been interviewed, find out what the interview process look like in terms of ... Was it a phone interview? Was it in person? Were they grilling you with real hard questions or was it a "get to know you" kind of process? You can find out how candidates were recruited, whether it was through sending in an application online or they were recruited by a recruiter or at a job fair and so forth. That last piece is really important because if you want to work for an organization like Nike, for example, you might find that sending in an application through their HR system is really not the best way to get a job there. The best way is through a job fair or to talk to a recruiter. Even if you're not looking for a job, you can use the salary tool to see what other people with your job title are getting paid. As we just mentioned, this is really valuable if you're looking to negotiate for a starting salary or for a pay raise. You can show what your comparables are and say, "This is what the market rate is." Mac, you just mentioned using those comparables to set salary ranges, so it sounds like this is something that you're familiar with job seekers doing. Mac Prichard:    It is. Employers, as I mentioned earlier, look at it too because ... When you're hiring staff and you want to keep people onboard, the old role is true: You get what you pay for. You want to make sure that you're offering the most competitive wages and salaries you can and doing this kind of research will help you do that. Ben Forstag:   That was the good part. Now, we're going to be talking about the bad part. Mac Prichard:    Okay. Ben Forstag:     Glassdoor.com ... It really works best for larger organizations. It's not much help if you're applying to a small organization with just a handful of employees. I took the liberty of looking up Mac's List. We're not on there. I looked up Prichard Communications, your other firm, Mac. They're not on there. Mac Prichard:    Okay. Ben Forstag:     Nike's on there, Intel's on there ... A lot of big Portland firms and firms all around the country and the world are there. The reason for this is because all the data they have is submitted by actual employees or former employees. The larger your workforce, the more likely you're going to have people submitting information about you online. Also, Glassdoor is not great for nonprofit organizations. I looked up several nonprofits that I've worked with and only one of them was listed there. If you're looking for nonprofit backgrounds, probably a better place to start would be on the 990 forms that you can find on places like Charity Navigator. That's how you would find out what the executive director is being paid, what other high level executives are being paid within organizations. Mac Prichard:    Why do you think that's so, Ben? Is it a reflection of the size of many nonprofits? Is that why we're not seeing them pop up on this site? Ben Forstag:     I'm guessing so. A vast majority of nonprofit organizations are pretty small. We're talking less than five employees. The same rule that applied to the for-profits: The more employees you have, the more likely you're going to have reviews online? It applies for nonprofits as well. Much of the data, as I mentioned, is provided by current and former employees, so the data tends to be a little bit skewed either very positive or very negative. Not a whole lot right in the middle. You ready for the ugly? Mac Prichard:   Sure. Ben Forstag:  Okay. The ugly is, if you spend too much time on Glassdoor, you start finding that some of the reviews are very, very negative. People really slamming their former boss or the former organization. They had a bad experience at a company and so, they just want to take revenge. All the reviews are anonymous, so people feel that they can go out and just write whatever they want. Now, one organization that I worked with in the past was listed there. It was a small organization and there was a very negative review of that organization. There was enough data in this anonymous review that I knew who wrote it. I would suggest if you have something negative to say, think twice before you write anything on Glassdoor.com, especially if you work in a real small organization. You don't want to burn bridges if you don't need to. If someone can identify you through any information you leave on that site, that really destroys any kind of professional credibility you have moving forward. Certainly you can't use that organization as a reference anymore. That's the good, the bad, and the ugly of Glassdoor.com. Mac Prichard:   Thank you, Ben. Do you have a suggestion for Ben? Write him and we may share your idea on the show. His email address is ben@macslist.org. Now, it's time to hear from Cecilia Bianco, our community manager. Cecilia is in touch with you, our listeners, throughout the week and she joins us to answer one of your questions. Cecilia, what do you have for us this week? What's the question of the week? Cecilia Bianco:  Oh thanks, Mac. Our question is, "How should I prepare to negotiate my salary?" The main piece of advice I have for this is to do your research and go into a negotiation extremely prepared and knowledgeable. Ben's resource this week is actually a great place to start. Glassdoor, Salary.com, and other websites like these allow you to see what other people in your role are making. You can compare your offer to the local market and see how it matches up. As Ben mentioned, you can search nationally and locally, so always try to narrow it down to salary specific to your city. Sometimes they don't have enough information to provide an average, but it's still a good practice to always check. Then, an easy to get good local information is to ask your peers, family, friends, really anyone you're comfortable discussing this with in your professional network. That can help confirm or support your online research, too. Ben and Mac, I'm curious if you've used research like this when you've negotiated in past jobs. Mac Prichard:    Well, I have to say ... As the two of you speak, I'm just reflecting on the fact that you both have anniversaries coming up after the holidays. Ben Forstag: Speaking of which, Mac ... Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. Mac Prichard:    As your employer, I better check out these sites and get ready for those meetings after the Christmas holidays, but seriously ... I am serious on that. I have used research like this in negotiating with employees or when I've had jobs myself and have approached employers. It's good to have the facts in your corner when you're making the case for either a higher salary for starting a position or for an annual adjustment. How about you, Ben? Ben Forstag: I haven't. I wish I had this data like three or four years ago. When I moved from Washington DC to Portland, I really struggled because I got a job offer, but because the cost of living is so different between those two cities, it was really hard for me to evaluate what my value was. I was making one amount in DC and for the comparable job in Portland, the job offer said the value was significantly less than what I was making in DC. I just didn't have the data behind me to justify whether that was a good offer or a bad offer. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah, definitely. It's really important to know the local market. Then beyond that, I think it's important to think about the job you're negotiating for specifically. Reflect on how competitive the applicant pool was and if the employer's been hiring for the position for a long time. Basically, the harder it was for the employer to find you and hire you for the job, the more negotiating power you're going to have. I know negotiating can feel really uncomfortable, but it's important to get paid what you believe you deserve. Just prepare yourself to really make it easier because the more prepared you are, the more confident and ease you're going to feel when you start negotiations. Mac, from your point of view as an employer, what types of research or negotiation tactics do you feel are effective? Mac Prichard:  I always find it persuasive when someone shows me data for salaries for comparable positions in the local market. It could come from the websites that you cited. I also hear from readers all the time that they often look at Mac's List not because they're looking for work, but they're curious to know what jobs like theirs are paying. Visit websites and job boards to pull those kinds of figures and I think you'll be much more effective in making your case. Something else I want to say about negotiating salaries ... There's research out there that shows that men are more likely to ask for higher salaries when they are negotiating for a job for the first time or for raises than women. I think the employers expect to hear those requests, so I encourage you whatever your gender. Do your homework. Take some time to study negotiating techniques. It'll pay off because once you're in a job, you're setting a base, a foundation, that will likely be that, a base, for several years upon which annual increases will be made. Don't be afraid to be assertive. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. That makes sense. I think that one thing we commonly see is that people undervalue what they bring to the table, especially after a long job search or they're just afraid to miss out on an opportunity because of what they want to be paid. Really, as Mac just said, it's better to talk it through in negotiations with an employer rather than accept the job at a salary that's going to make you feel undervalued through each raise because you're not going to get a twenty percent raise ever, likely. It's better to do it when you're just starting. The worst that can happen is that they say no and you have to compromise. Don't forget that you can also negotiate for better benefits if the salary you want is really just out of reach. Mac and Ben, anything to add? Any last tips? Mac Prichard:    I think ... Any candidate is at their most attractive to an employer when there's an offer on the table. That's the time to ... As you say, don't be afraid to ask. The worst thing you're going to hear is no. If you don't ask, you won't get it. Cecilia Bianco:  Yeah. That's true. If you're interested in more tips on figuring out how to talk about your value to an employer, you'll find several blog posts on Mac's List if you search for "salary negotiation". Mac Prichard:    Well, thanks, Cecilia. If you have a question for Cecilia, you can email her. Her email address is cecilia@macslist.org. The segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond". We're making the complete Mac's List guide even better by adding new content and making the book available on multiple e-reader platforms. When we launch the revised version in February, you'll be able to access "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond" on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, and other digital devices. You'll also be able to order a paperback edition. Whatever the format, our goal is the same. To give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. For more information, visit macslist.org/ebook and sign up for our e-book newsletter. We'll send you publication updates, share exclusive book content, and provide you with special pre-sale prices. Now, let's turn to our expert guest, Melissa Anzman. Melissa is a certified executive coach who helps people get on the right career track and enjoy success in the workplace. She's worked with hundreds of people to grow their careers to the next level. Before starting LaunchYourJob.com, Melissa spent thirteen years in the corporate world as a human resource leader. She's also the author of "How to Land a Job: Secrets of an HR Insider". Well, Melissa, thanks for joining us today. Melissa Anzman:   Thanks so much for having me, Mac. It's always fun chatting with you and your team. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. It's a pleasure to have you here. Well, let's turn to our topic today "human resources departments". I have to say, Melissa. When I was doing my homework, I was looking online on this subject and words like "guards", "gatekeepers", and "black hole" kept popping up when I was searching under "human resources" and job hunter-ing. Why do you think human resources departments have that reputation? Melissa Anzman:      Yeah. It's definitely one that's unfortunately common and not very flattering of a distinction. Human resources departments get a bad rap because they really are sort of the face of a lot of behind the scenes work. When you're applying to a job, there's one person in HR that you'll talk to usually when you need help with the application, another person in HR takes care of it and then, there's that comp, compensation person, who does sort of the ... What your offer'll be and so on and so forth. A lot of times, HR gets a bad rap when it comes to the hiring process because they are the gatekeeper in that they're the first line of defense to get your foot in the door at a company. As you've learned in a previous podcast with Jenny, with Job Jenny I should say, Jenny Foss, the first step is usually the online application system. A lot of times we blame HR, who are people, for things that something a system may have kicked in or kicked out. Mac Prichard:    I'm glad you brought that up because HR departments aren't going away, so we have to work with them whether we're hiring managers or applicants. Let's talk about how you do that and some effective strategies. Let's start. How do you recommend listeners approach an HR department? What's a good way of getting started? Melissa Anzman:     Absolutely. There is a science to working with HR. Unfortunately, the science is going to be tweaked a little bit depending on the company and the size and all of that fun stuff. There's sort of three ways that you can work really well with them in order to get your foot in the door, in order to move along in the hiring process, and so on. The most important one is understanding and realizing your own personal value proposition. HR ... If you sort of put your feet in their shoes, HR gets a ton of resumes. Lots of qualified candidates particularly for super cool awesome jobs, right? They're also getting those resumes and applications from people who are cream of the crop. Top tier, high potential, great talent. It's up to you to market yourself and really showcase for them. Make it easy for them to say yes to you. Know what value you bring to the table and tell them that early and often and repeatedly during the process. Mac Prichard:    What are some practical ways that people can do that? I'm an applicant, I'm not afraid to bang my own drum, or toot my own horn, rather. How can I do that? I've got to fill out a form, I may not be able to get somebody on the phone. What have you as being on the other side of that door inside an HR department seen work well? Melissa Anzman:     Your resume is your first tool if you're going to go blind. I would say the thing on your resume is I don't want to read a bullet point list of skill sets you have. That doesn't help me as an HR person. What I want to understand ... I want to see results driven, metric driven information on your resume of what you've done. That whole "show, don't tell me" is so important when you're applying. Another way you can do that is how you follow up. That's sort of the second thing of networking and outreaching. How you follow up, you have to consistently reinforce your value proposition. This is why you have to meet me before you move any further in the process. If you can convince an HR person to do that, you'll go far along because they are sort of that gatekeeper. To do that, you just have to showcase who you uniquely are. It's your approach, it's leveraging all the tools in your toolbox. If you're online, making sure that you're positioning yourself as a subject matter expert in that field. If you're using just a resume, it's super detail oriented, data driven, metric driven information, so that the HR person is not guessing your capabilities. You also have a great platform on LinkedIn. LinkedIn allows them to research you whether it's for a first time or they're just looking or they're a sourcer or maybe they're following up on a resume. You really want that to be a good calling card for you as well. Mac Prichard:    Know your value, document it with metrics, facts, and figures, and put that in your application, but don't stop there. Look at the other opportunities you have online to make your case through your LinkedIn profile as well as demonstrating your expertise, your leadership, in the field through blogging or participating in forums. Tactics like that. Is that step number one? Melissa Anzman:   Absolutely. That is step number one. I would just like to say one more thing on that. When you're writing anything that goes towards your value proposition, make sure each sentence answers the question, "So what?" Why would the resume reader or the HR person care about that sentence or bullet point or metric or whatever that is? Get really tight on your messaging because you don't have a hundred times to make an impression. You really have one. Be super clear and concise and efficient with your words and answer "So what?" every time. Mac Prichard:  Great advice, Melissa. Now, what's the next step? The application's in, the online platforms are in good shape. What should an applicant be doing next to connect with HR and get beyond them and in front of the hiring manager? Melissa Anzman:             Yeah. The second step is one that I personally dreaded for a long time myself. It's kind of the tried and true step, but it's about networking and outreach. I think the word "networking" in this instance is a terrible fit because what you have to do is you kind of have to pursue or make some outreach or try and get on a first date essentially, right? You're trying to get this HR person interested enough in you that they want to date you, that they'll ask you out. To do that, you don't just send an email to someone. Although now, you probably do less than that with all the apps out there, but when you're talking about work, you have to follow up. I don't mean you send an email to the careers@entercompanyname.com website. You spend ... It takes ten minutes or so on LinkedIn and Google to find the email address of a hiring manager or find the email address of the recruiter. You send them a note and you express your interest. You think about your value proposition and you show it to them in your email super short and sweet. Let them have their contact information. You've sort of opened the door for a first date. Mac Prichard:  Melissa, I just want to pause there because I can imagine some listeners saying, "Okay. All I have is careers@mydreamcompany.com. How do I find the name of the recruiter or the hiring manager? I can figure out how to get their email address once I know the name, but what's the secret to getting that name?" Melissa Anzman:   Yeah. I mean, getting the name is hard and I have some suggestions on a post that you can definitely include in the show notes, Mac. Essentially, you have to think like a researcher here. This is kind of a skill that went to the way ... I'm going to sound really old now ... Went to the wayside with the internet and Google. You need to do your research. That's about searching for the company ... Here's how I'd do it on LinkedIn. I'll search for the company and I'll put sort of the company and the department that I'm interested in, or the department and recruiter. Then, you'll see a list of names that pop up that fit that thing and you want to filter it down to "current", etc, etc. When you start looking at profiles, LinkedIn gives you some suggestions on the right-hand side. I tend to find the suggestions to be super helpful because good recruiters in particular usually have their "I focus on this area at this company." You can usually find pretty easily the recruiter's name by just narrowing it down on LinkedIn in that regard. Mac Prichard:  Good. That's step number two. You've found the person you want to connect with, you've thought about ways to network with them and reach out to them directly, and make that case. What do you do next, Melissa? Melissa Anzman:       The next thing is something that people forget. Just completely forget. That's really understanding and knowing your audience. Not all people on the hiring process timeline or the candidate experience are created equal. When you're dealing with a front line, so the first point of contact recruiter, they don't know details about the job you're trying to do. What I mean by that is they don't know the nitty gritty details of the technical aspects of your role. They have fifty, sixty ... I don't know, hundreds sometimes, at some companies of requisitions open across their table. Their expertise is to recruit, not to know your department. When you talk to them, they are looking for culture fit, your personality ... They're trying to understand if you have the basic skills for the role, so you're using the right jargon and words that describe the position as someone else has described it to them. They are not at all interested in knowing about the super nitty gritty details that make no sense to anybody outside your industry or your position much less, during that process. As soon as you start talking to that person around things that make no sense to them, you've lost them. They're already tuning out. Mac Prichard:    Okay. Technical skills matter, but save that for your conversation with the hiring manager. I just want to clarify, Melissa. When we're talking about recruiters, we're talking about people within an HR department who are tasked ... Whose job it is to recruit people for that company. We're not talking about headhunters who might be under contract working outside the company. Melissa Anzman:               Absolutely. Sorry for that. Yeah. When I say recruiter, it's always that internal resource within HR that's responsible for getting people in the door for the role. Mac Prichard:  Okay. Now, I'm often asked, what about just bypassing HR altogether? I think sometimes people think, "If I could just go around the HR department and get in front of the hiring manager, all my problems would be solved." What's your reaction to that? Melissa Anzman:   Well, it's hard. There isn't a one size fits all there. I would say be very careful if you do that, right? You're not going to be creating any friends or anything of that regard to do that. Also, at most companies particularly in different states and just sort of what state laws are and all of that fun stuff, you do have to go through the official hiring process to get an offer. I am all for you making that first connection, that first introduction, that first outreach, whatever it is with the hiring manager directly, but you should also instantly get on the right train. What I mean by that is get onto the process that the company wants you to go through. If you're a great candidate and you're sort of someone that that person, the hiring manager, loves anyway, it's going to make no difference other than the fact that you're going to actually walk into a company with friends instead of having HR as an enemy. Mac Prichard:    Okay. I also hear from people who ask me, "What can I do after I've applied for a job and I get a rejection letter from HR? Should I call the human resources department? Should I still try to reach out to the hiring manager?" What options do people have at that point in the process? Melissa Anzman: Well, I think it depends on how far along in the process you got. If you just applied and got an auto-generated email or even a personal email saying, "Thank you for your application. We're going in a different direction", that's where the conversation should end. There's nothing you can glean from it. Maybe it was an internal candidate that they hired, maybe you were too late in the process. I mean, there's just so many things and they're not going to tell you. That would be that case. If you're further along ... Let's say you've been interviewing with them. You've seen somebody in person or you've talked to someone in person. I don't really recommend that you continue the conversation unless something odd happened. Maybe you're just sort of not feeling like you got closure or an answer or something like that, that would be the only case where I would say continue. Usually, they are restricted by some laws to tell you what went wrong in the interview process, right? They are going to be very careful if you ask them that question. They're not really apt to helping you improve your interviewing skills going forward unless you created a good rapport with that recruiter. Mac Prichard:   Okay. Now if you are invited in for an interview, often you start with the human resources department and then, advance on to a conversation with the hiring manager. Are those two different conversations and should people prepare for them in different ways? Melissa Anzman:  Absolutely. They are night and day different conversations, or they should be. If they're not ... Take a step back and level set yourself going forward. When you're interviewing with HR ... You need to talk about you and yourself and your personality and your strengths. That kind of focus. Really high level, "I'm a fit for this organization." When you move to a conversation with the hiring manager, they're thinking about different things. They want to know ... Can you do the job? They're going to ask themselves what a pain or not pain you will be to manage. I know I'm not supposed to say that, but it's true, right? When we're trying to hire someone, we're like, "How much work is this going to be for me?" You want to make sure your conversations are geared in that regard. They also want to understand more about you as a person. What makes you tick, what motivates you, if you would fit on the team that's already there, as well as those technical skills. It's a very different conversation with the hiring manager than it should be with HR. Mac Prichard:  What's the best way to follow up on those separate conversations? Melissa Anzman:    I always believed in a thank you note. I have a little template on my site which, again, feel free to include, of when to send an email thank you versus when to send an actual thank you note and when in the process. Any time you talk to or meet with somebody, you absolutely need to follow up. Email is a little bit more instantaneous, so that's great for a lot of different situations, but there are definitely some levels and some roles that you want to write an actual handwritten thank you note. Mac Prichard:    We'll be sure to include a link to that page in the show notes. We're coming to close of our interview, Melissa. What are some other things that our listeners should think about? Melissa Anzman:  Yeah. I would just say when you're interviewing, we have a tendency as we're very nervous in an interview to ramble on. It's a skill you can absolutely learn and get better at. I always recommend that you practice what I call "STARS". That's a pretty typical term, but it means everything that you answer, every single answer in a interview conversation can be framed around a specific situation or task, the action that you took, and the result to the company for it. That's only three sentences if you want to be super efficient to get your point across. By doing so, not only are you adding a lot of value to the conversation and making that HR person or the hiring manager love you because they know you know what you're doing, but you're also keeping them engaged in the conversation, which has a lot longer of a tale for your winning, I guess, through the process ... Through your success through the process, I should say. Mac Prichard:  That's terrific, Melissa. I know that we've been talking about human resource departments, but ... Would you have different advice if an agency doesn't have an HR department, particularly, the smaller employers? Are there things that would be appropriate to do that you haven't described here? Melissa Anzman:  Yeah. I mean, I think when an organization is smaller and don't have the HR resources, usually the hiring manager or someone else is managing the process. You're almost cutting out a middleman a lot of the time, which is great, which is in the favor of the candidate every single time. Instead of following up with HR, go directly to the person that you should be working with or outreach directly to the hiring manager because you have that opportunity. I would still say make sure you know your audience in the interview process. It may not be an HR person, but maybe you're meeting with a finance person who's going to care a lot about a lot of different things than your hiring manager. Just keep that in mind, but it will play out a little differently by cutting out a middleman. Mac Prichard:    Great. Well, thank you, Melissa. You can find Melissa online at LaunchYourJob.com. You can also buy her book "How to Land a Job: Secrets of an HR Insider" at her website and on Amazon.com. We'll be sure to include links to your website and your book in the show notes. Thank you again, Melissa, for joining us. Melissa Anzman:  Thanks so much for having me, Mac. Mac Prichard: We're back with Ben and Cecilia. What did you two think? What were some of the most important points you heard Melissa make? Cecilia Bianco:  I got a lot out of that. I think she has ... An inside view that we don't hear a lot, particularly about not going around HR. Sometimes we hear it's a lot easier if you can get straight to the hiring manager, but clearly that will do more harm than good in the end if you get the job. I thought that was a really important tip. Ben Forstag:   I liked that she outlined the process to work with them because I think, in my perspective, it's always been if you send your job application to "careers@", it is the black hole. Nothing's going to happen to it. I've just stopped doing that in my own job searches, but it does sound like there is a process and that if you follow the right steps, you can get some traction going through HR. Mac Prichard:    Yeah. I think that's an important point and to know the process. There's a leadership talk I attended once at a conference. The one thing I remember ... It was delivered by a retired US Naval Officer. He said, "Learn the system and make the system work for you." Having that insider perspective, Cecilia, I agree is really important. Knowing that process and doing the homework to uncover it and understand it can pay benefits for you down the line. Good. Well, thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. In the meantime, visit us at macslist.org. You can sign up for our free newsletter there and you'll find more than a hundred new jobs every week. If you like what you hear on our show, please help us by leaving a review and rating at iTunes. This will help others discover our show and help us reach more job seekers. Thank you for listening.  

If you want a job that lets you make a difference in the world you’ll likely consider a career in public service.   A government job--at the local, state or federal level--can offer you the opportunity to address issues that matter, such as education,  the environment, and homelessness. You can find positions suited to every interest and skill, from art history to zoology. And the work itself can be gratifying. But getting your first government job can be challenging. The application process usually requires patience and persistence. And managing a career in public service requires thoughtful planning. This week on Find Your Dream Job Mac talks with Kirsten Wyatt, assistant city manager of West Linn, Oregon, co-founder of the organization Emerging Local Government Leaders, and host of the GovLove podcast. Kirsten is passionate about helping talented professionals enter the public service sector and shares her tips for anyone looking to get a job in government. In this 38-minute episode you will learn: How you can explore your passion (and help others) with a government career Tips for building a network to help you transition into a government job New tools and protocols for applying for government jobs What the government interview process looks like Creative ways support your government job search This week’s guest: Kirsten Wyatt (@kowyatt & @elgl50)Assistant City Manager, West Linn, Ore.Co-Founder, Emerging Local Government Leaders?West Linn, Ore. Listener question of the week:  What's the best way to start my job search? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: Nonprofit Organization of Oregon Hatch Innovation Lab GlassDoor.com BestPlacesToWork.org StrengthsFinder Emerging Local Government Leaders GovLove Podcast Josh’s Job Search Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond) - 2016 Edition If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support!Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com. FULL TRANSCRIPT Mac Prichard: This is "Find Your Dream Job", the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host, and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List and by our book, "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond". We have a new edition of the book. It's coming out in February and you can learn more about it by visiting macslist.org/ebook. Thanks for joining us today. This week on "Find Your Dream Job", we're talking about government work, how to get it, and how to manage a public service career. If you want a job that lets you make a difference in the world, you're likely to consider a career in public service. A government job can offer you the opportunity to address issues that matter such as education, the environment, and homelessness. You can also find positions suited to every interest and skill from art history to zoology and the work itself can be very gratifying. Getting your first government job, however, can be challenging. The application process usually requires patience and persistence and managing a career in public service requires thoughtful planning. If you're thinking about applying for a federal job, Ben Forstag has a website that you'll want to check out. It uses employee surveys to tell you which agencies are the best places to work for different groups, including veterans and women and others. Not sure how to get started pursuing a career in public service? Cecilia Bianco has a set of steps you can follow to get clear about what you need to do next. Then, we'll turn to this week's expert, Kirsten Wyatt. She's the co-founder of a national association for government professionals. Kirsten will share her advice about how to navigate the government application process and she'll tell you what you need to do to have a successful public sector career. Before we get started, I want to give a big shout out to Cecilia, who last night wowed a crowd here in Portland that was interested in finding work in the nonprofit world. Cecilia, what were some of the ... Did you have a good experience? Cecilia Bianco: I did. Yeah. It was a great experience and it was a good crowd. I think they were really engaged with learning about how Portland is different and how you can get a nonprofit job specifically in Portland, which as you know, is mostly through networking and informational interviews. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Any other key takeaways you want to share? Either from your presentation or your conversations with people afterwards? Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. I think the biggest takeaway for me is that people know they need to network, but they don't know how to get started. I think talking about that with them and giving them practical advice was the most important part of the night. Mac Prichard: Good. Ben, I know you and Cecilia organize these events throughout the course of the year. Can you tell our listeners more about them and how they can learn more about it? Ben Forstag: Sure. Each year, Mac's List organize four different events on our own. They're quarterly based. These tend to be focused around specific topic areas. How to get a job in communications, for example. We also partner with the Nonprofit Association of Oregon and a local incubator group called Hatch Oregon to put on a series of presentations called "Career Pathways to Doing Good in Oregon". That's what Cecilia was speaking at last night and that also happens four times a year. Mac Prichard: Good. Well, visit the website if you'd like to learn more about those events and let's turn to this week's regular segments. Every week, Ben is out there exploring the internet looking for blogs, tools, and podcasts that you can use to help in your job search. Ben, what have you discovered for us this week? Ben Forstag: Mac, I am so excited to share the resource this week. This is a website I found about three months ago, but I've been holding onto it just for today's podcast. I'm super excited to share it. Mac Prichard: I can see you vibrating in the seat. Ben Forstag: Yeah. This combines two of my favorite things. One is public service jobs and the other one is data. As you and Cecilia know, I love data. I love looking at spreadsheets and all that kind of stuff. Mac Prichard: Yeah. You're definitely a number cruncher. Ben Forstag: The resource this week is a website called bestplacestowork.org. This is like a Glassdoor website specifically for federal government agencies. If you are interested in working for the federal government, this is a website you can go to to learn about the internal culture of the government agencies. Mac Prichard: Great. For the benefit of our listeners who might not know about Glassdoor, it's a website that has information from employees of companies who share insights into supervisors' styles ... Good bosses, bad bosses, basically, as well as information about salaries. Ben Forstag: Yeah, and so this is specifically just the federal government. Each year, the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially manages the entire federal workforce, conducts this survey of all federal workers across three hundred and eighty nine different federal organizations. I mean, they ask a series of questions related to employee satisfaction, employee commitment, and other topics that would measure how good of a workplace this is. The questions they ask are things like, "Do you recommend your organization as a good place to work? Are creativity and innovation rewarded in your agency? How satisfied are you with your involvement in decisions that affect your work?" These are really kind of getting at what is the day to day experience for workers in these agencies. From these responses, they assign employee satisfaction scores to each federal agency and then, rank the agencies against each other. Best Places to Work is where the public can go to review all of these scores. Agency rankings are sortable by multiple demographic groups. For example, you can look for the best federal workplaces for women or the best agencies for veterans or the best places for younger workers versus those for more seasoned employees. All these rankings come from the employees themselves saying what their experience there is. Mac Prichard: Were there any surprises when you looked at the data or agencies that stood out, Ben? Ben Forstag: Well, I was actually going to ask you and Cecilia here what you thought of all the federal agencies out there, do you want to take a guess at which agency had the highest employee satisfaction score? Cecilia Bianco: Oh, that's tough. I think I'm going to pivot to Mac on this one. I have no idea. Ben Forstag: Okay, Mr. Government Work. Mac Prichard: I'm guessing it's not the Veterans Administration. Ben Forstag: It is not the Veterans Administration. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Okay. I give up. Ben Forstag: Top ranked for the last three years is NASA, which is awesome. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Ben Forstag: They're loving sending people up into space. That's good. Mac Prichard: Well, I know we may be dating ourselves here because these podcasts will live on for a long time, but if you've seen "The Martian", that is like a love letter to NASA. It's one of the few movies coming out of a Hollywood studio I've seen in recent years that shows government doing a good job, government actually working. Ben Forstag: Hmm. Interesting. I'll have to check that out. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Ben Forstag: Do you want to take a guess at what the worst ranked agency is? Major agency? Cecilia Bianco: Mac, any ideas? Mac Prichard: I don't want to disparage any agency, but- Cecilia Bianco: Yes. Mac Prichard: Guessing and that not being correct. Ben Forstag: Well, I'll go out there. I thought it was going to be the IRS. Mac Prichard: Oh. Ben Forstag: It's not. It's actually the Department of Homeland Security. Cecilia Bianco: Hmm. Ben Forstag: Again, this is all from the employees themselves voting on their own experience. One of the interesting things here is they rank all these different organizations, the large agencies, the mid-size agencies, and the small agencies. One of the things I really liked about this website because I am a dork like that is all of the small little sub-agencies that exist out there.For example, the top ranked small agency, or sub-component, was the Surface Transportation Board, which I've never heard of. The worst rated government agency of all the categories for every demographic group? This one scares me a little bit. The Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board. Cecilia Bianco: Yikes. Ben Forstag: The folks who are working there are not happy. Cecilia Bianco: That's not good. Ben Forstag: No, it isn't. Mac Prichard: What's scary too is I've actually heard of the Surface Transportation Board. I've worked for three transportation projects in my career, so I'm familiar with that one. Ben Forstag: Okay. If you're interested in working in the federal government, you should definitely check out bestplacestowork.org to get a feel for the culture in each agency. Even if you're not planning on working for Uncle Sam, I think you can find some good value on this site. Check out the methodology section and the questions included in the employee survey.I talked about some of those questions earlier. There's about fifty four of them that they ask. These are the kind of questions you should be thinking about when you're evaluating your own work situation or perhaps, a prospective employer. It really gives you a sense of what the culture might be in those organizations. Mac Prichard: Good. Well, thank you, Ben. Do you have an idea for Ben? You can reach him at his email address ben@macslist.org. He's waiting to hear from you and he may share your idea on the show. Now, it's time to hear from you, our listeners. Cecilia Bianco, our community manager, is here to answer one of your questions. Cecilia, what's your question of the week?Cecilia Bianco: The question today is, "What's the best way to start my job search?" This week, I know we're talking about government jobs, but I'm going to give you some basic and important tips to get your job search started that will be applicable to whatever field you're interested in. Because I speak with so many people who are looking for work, I pick up the most common problems that they're dealing with. What I've been hearing a lot lately is people are starting their job search before they actually know what they really want to focus on and what job they really want to be in. This is making it a much longer and more painful process for them. Mac, I know you talk to a lot of people as well. Have you noticed this? Mac Prichard: I have. I see it not only in conversations I have with people who tell me about their job search, but frankly, I've experienced it myself. Early in my career, I struggled with goal setting and being clear about what I wanted and probably spent far more time than I needed to on different searches as a result. I'm glad you're bringing this up. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. It can make it really hard. My first suggestion to people having this problem is, before you even start your job search, take some inventory of yourself and what you really want from a career. The easiest way to start thinking about this is to really figure out your main strengths and your main goals for what job you want right now. With your strengths, I don't mean thinking about a mental list of your skills, which we see people do all the time. I mean knowing how to talk about your strengths to a potential employer before you start applying to jobs, so being prepared with examples and past evidence that show your strengths rather than listing them off. As you guys know, almost every job on our list is asking for writing and communication skills, but employers don't want to see a resume or cover letter or hear you in a interview just say, "I'm a strong communicator." They want you to show them rather than tell them. If you're prepared and you know your strengths and you know how you can prove them, that's the best way to nail down what type of job you're going to be good at. For this example specifically, you want to really think about any past awards you've received, successful campaigns you've been a part of, if you've increased an online following or even revenue through communications work that you've done. That's one main way to narrow down what your real strengths are is by being able to prove them. Another reason it's important to know your strengths this well is because you want to find a job that you're going to be good at. Ben, you've touched on this in past episodes. Can you reiterate your thoughts on why people should be in jobs that really fit their strengths? Ben Forstag: Yes, Cecilia. I think no one likes going to work and being unsuccessful day in and day out at their job. Any time you can get a job where you're exercising your strengths, you're always going to end up being more productive and probably happier at the end of the day. I talked about the strengths finder test several weeks ago on the podcast and I think what's so great about that is it helps people reframe some of their personality types around strengths and gives them tips on operationalizing how they could use those strengths in the workplace. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah, definitely. I've found that to be true in my current job. I know my strengths are the skills that I need to excel at it, so it makes me happier throughout the day as I'm getting things done. Mac Prichard: I'd like to add, Cecilia. I so agree with your point about the importance of showing rather than telling because when people do that, they have a terrific advantage, particularly in the interview process. One thing I've seen candidates do when I've been on interview panels that allows them to show rather than tell is they ask questions about the needs of the employer.They say, "What are your biggest problems?" What happens when that the employer responds is that you get an opportunity to think and reflect about how you have approached that problem before and to tell a story. Not to say, "I've got great communication skills", for example, but "I had an experience like that earlier in my career. Let me tell you how we approached it and how we solved that problem." That's a very unique thing to be able to do and helps you distinguish yourself from the other candidates in the process. It's to your point about the importance of showing rather than telling. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. I think the way to get good at that is by knowing your strengths really well. That's really the starting point. Mac Prichard: Absolutely. Cecilia Bianco: The next thing I want to talk about is really knowing your goals because that is really, really crucial. I don't mean long-term where you want to be in ten years. I mean your goals for your career right now and what type of job you want to be in. You want to think about the company culture that you're going to enjoy the most, the impact you want to be making, and what your day to day responsibilities are going to be that you really want to be in charge of and you're going to enjoy day in and day out. If you think about these things and you have them nailed down, when you go to look at a list of three hundred jobs, it really makes it easier to focus in on the ones that are a right fit for you. When you go into an interview or write your application for a job you know you're the right fit for, we've found that you appear more genuine and you're more likely to get the job because the employers can pick up on that. It's important to be authentic and show you really are the right fit. You're not just saying you're good at this, you're good at that. You really are good at this and you really are good at that and you really want to be at a company that supports a certain type of environment. Those are my main tips for how you can get started. Mac and Ben, anything to add? Ben Forstag: I just want to reiterate your focus on being focused and knowing what you want to be doing for a career. We talk to a lot of job seekers and I completely understand the mentality of "I don't want to close off any options, so I'll do anything" or "I'm open to any opportunity". I understand that. I've been there.At the end of the day, I think employers really want someone who's focused and committed to certain types of work instead of the person who'll do anything or the jack of all trades. It really does shorten the job search process when you do find focus and passion behind that focus. Mac Prichard: Yeah. I think that's a very important point you're making, Cecilia. This idea that you really do need to be clear about what you want because employers will pick up on that. They'll pick up on your energy, as you say. You just make it easier for employers to say yes to you when you focus on your strengths and what you're good at and what your passionate about. Cecilia Bianco: Yeah. That's definitely true. Also to Ben's point, when you're focusing really hard on a specific type of job, it makes your next steps easier, which the next steps when you're starting a job search is to target organizations and people you need to talk to that can help you. Really overall, just get some focus before you start. Mac Prichard: Okay. Well, that's very good advice. Thanks, Cecilia. If you have a question for Cecilia, please email her. Her address is cecilia@macslist.org. The segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the 2016 edition of "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond". We're making the complete Mac's List guide even better by adding new content and making the book available on multiple platforms. When we launch the new version in February, you'll be able to access "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond" on your Kindle, Nook, iPad, and other digital devices. You'll also be able to get a paperback edition for the first time. Whatever the format though, our goal is the same. To give you the tools and tips you need to get meaningful work. To learn more, visit macslist.org/ebook and sign up for our ebook newsletter. You'll get updates, exclusive book content, and we'll provide you with special pre-sale prices. Let's turn to our expert this week, Kirsten Wyatt. She is the co-founder of ELGL, an acronym that stands for Emerging Local Government Leaders. ELGL is a national organization with chapters across the country that connects, communicates, and educates about public service. Now, Kirsten writes frequently about government for the ELGL blog. She also hosts the GovLove podcast and serves as the assistant city manager in West Linn, Oregon. She studied politics at Willamette University and earned a master's in public administration from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Kirsten, thanks for coming to the Mac's List studio and joining us today. Kirsten Wyatt: Thanks. It's great to be here. Mac Prichard: Yeah. Let's start with some broad questions. Why should somebody consider a career in government? Kirsten Wyatt: Well, I think the thing that's amazing about a career in government, especially local government, is that no matter your interest or no matter your passion area, you can find a job. As I was getting ready for this podcast, I was poking around on the county website. They're hiring dentists, they're hiring engineers, they're hiring levy experts, they're hiring budget analysts. Really whatever your passion is, government has a place for you. I think that's really exciting because then you get to have a career where you're exploring your passion, but you're also doing something to benefit the greater good. To me, a local government career is tremendously rewarding. You have a lot of abilities to learn new things and grow your career and grow your personal self. To me, that's why I've pursued a career in local government and why I always encourage other people to look to local government. Mac Prichard: Good. If someone is at the start of their career or they're thinking about entering into public service, what are some of the issues they should think about as they lay the foundation for a career in state or local or the federal government? Kirsten Wyatt: Well, I think it's important to remember that sometimes you don't just get to walk into a job. This is true in all industry sectors, but in government, often there are going to be minimum requirements related to getting a job. It's important to make sure as you are finishing your college career or building out your resume that you find some ways to get your foot in the door and get some of that relevant experience that government wants you to have when they're hiring. Mac Prichard: Let's get tactical for a moment. What are some steps that people can take to get that foot in the door? Kirsten Wyatt: One of my favorite stories is of people who decide they want to make that jump into government and so they take time on their own and volunteer at the local level, be it on a city budget committee, on a local planning commission. Using that, their free time, to get that experience that local government wants to see on a resume. You may be coming out of undergrad and you maybe have a lot of really theoretical or philosophical perspectives, but you don't have that kind of boots on the ground perspective. Taking some time, your own time, to get those relevant skills is really important. I love hearing the stories about someone who dedicated a year of Tuesday nights volunteering on a historic resources board because they really wanted to become a historic planner or something like that. I think that those types of things take a little bit of effort, but it really pays off in the end. Mac Prichard: I've seen that happen in the world of politics, too, where people who are active in their neighborhood volunteer for a committee and then, end up working for an elected official at city hall. Kirsten Wyatt: Absolutely. That's a great example, too. Mac Prichard: Yeah. What advice would you have for somebody who wants to get their foot in the door and maybe they want to make a mid-career change? Kirsten Wyatt: That's a tough one. I think one thing we've found from ELGL is finding a way to build a network in local government or in government is a really critical way to make sure you're building out those connections, so people can start to realize that the skills that you have built up over the years in the private sector are transferable to local government. That may mean building a network where the city manager of a certain city knows that you are a top notch communications expert. Maybe you've only worked for a consulting firm or a private company, but you're able to take those skills and make that transfer over to government. That's what we really try to promote through ELGL is making those sincere real connections regardless of what industry you're in. If you have an interest in public service, we want to help you make those relationships. Mac Prichard: Let's talk about the hiring process. When I talk to people who are interested in breaking into government whether they're coming out of college or graduate school or they want to make a mid-career switch, they tell me that they're intimidated. The process seems opaque, hard to understand. Break it down for our listeners. How do government agencies hire and what should people keep in mind when they're starting that application process? Kirsten Wyatt: Government hiring processes are horrible, but they are getting better. It was just as recently as two years ago that my own city, we created our first fillable form for our job application. Now, I'm proud to say that our local government as well as many others in the region are adapting a standardized application aggregator called NEOGOV. You can just fill in all of your information and then, use it to apply for many government level jobs. I was listening to your earlier podcasts and I am also a font snob. What I have found in local government that's hard is that they want you to put your application materials into a standardized format. That doesn't give you a lot of room for creativity or to show your flair. It's also aggravating because you may fill out an application for one city and then, you have to go in and fill out a whole other application for another city, typing in the exact same information. You don't get to go and pass out a resume. There's a different process and approach and that's just because government wants to be standardized across all of our hiring processes. It can seem more tedious, I think, than just uploading or submitting a resume. Mac Prichard: Once people ... If they're fortunate enough to live in a community where you can actually apply online or whether they print out a form and fill it out by hand, what are some strategies and tactics they should keep in mind when they do that? Kirsten Wyatt: Well, my number one advice is to understand the form of government that you're applying to. I have seen so many people contact the mayor about a job that they're interested in in a council manager form of government, which is just entirely inappropriate because the elected officials have no role in hiring. Same thing with really wanting a job, but not looking at the hierarchy or the way the organization is structured. When you're making that call to say, "Hey, I'd love to learn more. I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee and talk about this job", you're calling the entirely wrong person. I think that sometimes just having that really basic self awareness of the job that you're applying for and then, how you go about building that connection or that ... Show your involvement with that organization, you really need to be aware of what you're doing because you can just shoot yourself in the foot right off the bat. Mac Prichard: Okay, so don't call the mayor. Kirsten Wyatt: Don't call the mayor. Mac Prichard: Don't call the city counselor. Kirsten Wyatt: No. Mac Prichard: Who might you call? Who would it be appropriate to reach out to? Say you see a job at the local parks department and you're very excited about it. You're Leslie Knope. You want to be there. Kirsten Wyatt: Well, I think, first and foremost, you reach out to your network. Mac Prichard: Okay. Kirsten Wyatt: You reach out to that network you've already established and maybe there's someone that works in the adjacent city parks department. You reach out to them first and you say, "Give me the scoop on this job." Then, once you've realized that it's a really healthy and stable environment, then you potentially reach out if your person in your network advises you to to the hiring manager and just say, "I'd love to pick your brain. Learn more." You also need to be careful and make sure you don't overstep and seem like you're trying to sidestep the actual process that's going on, which again, gets back to why having that network is so important. A great example. In Tualatin recently ... Which is a really well run organization. They have one of the best city managers in the nation. It's one of those places where you want to work. They recently had two jobs come open in a very short span of time. It became really widely known in the local government community before they even advertised those positions. A lot of that is because Tualatin has put themselves into the center of a network where they're sharing information constantly about the work they're doing and the opportunities they have. Once you're able to insert yourself into that network, you're going to find out about things before they're even posted or advertised. Mac Prichard: Networking matters. We had another guest on the show, Kirsten. Jenny Foss talked about applicant tracking systems that are very common in the private sector. These are automated processes that look at resumes or other application materials identifying keywords. Is that a practice in government as well? Kirsten Wyatt: As we become more sophisticated and we're using tools like NEOGOV, it's becoming more possible or more likely that you're going to see an application screening process that's going to look for those keywords that were in the job description. Kind of echoing what she had mentioned in the podcast, making sure that you're tailoring your resume to that job description that's in that system is key. I mean, but that's kind of common sense. You don't want to just blanket the world with resumes.You want to make sure that if you're applying for a specific job, that you're tailoring your skills and abilities to match. Sometimes with the volume of resumes and applications that are coming in, there needs to be a rational nexus between your application and the job that is being advertised. I think that that's just ... That's not rocket science. I mean, you can go through the job description and find those keywords and make sure that you pull out the talent skills and abilities that you have that match those. Mac Prichard: I think that's very sound advice. When I first started applying for jobs in Oregon government when I came to Portland many years ago, I didn't have much success. Someone coached me about the importance of including keywords in my application materials and it made all the difference. I found I started getting interviews after I did that.When people after they've done the networking, they've gotten the lay of the land, maybe they've gotten their name in front of the right people, they've filled out the application materials. Now, they're walking into an interview. What should they expect when applying for a government job? What's different about this world and how can they prepare for it? Kirsten Wyatt: I'm seeing a rapidly changing way of interviewing in local government. I think a lot of this is because we're seeing more of a community interest, especially in certain level positions, to make sure that it's not just that that person is going to fit well with the existing staff, but how are they going to interact with their citizen advisory groups or citizen groups that they are expected to work with? In West Linn, I've seen interview panels that have been comprised just mainly of the supervisor and maybe one or two key staff people. When we get to that department head position or higher, I'm seeing panels, two or three panels, that take a good portion of the day. We're having citizens come in and sit on a panel, we're having peers that have the same position from other local government agencies sit on another panel, plus the department head team really trying to make sure that that fit is there. I think local governments are becoming more aware that when you make an investment in an employee, you need to make sure you get it right the first time because it's a really expensive mistake when you hire a bad fit. I've seen local governments become stronger at building out a panel or an assessment center-type situation that really helps identify who's going to become a key part of the team. I've also started to see for more technical positions, more testing and assessment, which I personally am a big fan of. When I was originally hired as a budget analyst in Virginia, I had to do a pretty extensive Excel test. At the time, I was a little surprised by that. In retrospect, it really helped them weed out people who didn't have just higher than average Excel skills. I'm a big fan of that, using those types of tests for finance positions and things like that. Mac Prichard: Just to go back to interview panels, Kirsten. When you served on those panels or you've talked to colleagues who have led them, what kind of candidates stand out? What do they do to break out of the pack and stand out as a candidate? Kirsten Wyatt: Well, with local government, it is so intensely unique. Every local government likes to think that they are amazing and the only local government that has the best library in the world or the best parks and rec department. They're proud of their history or their historic district or their urban renewal district. The candidates that stand out have done a healthy amount of research.It doesn't mean that they can sit there and recite every fund balance in every account, but it means that they have a real understanding of the community's values. Then, they weave that into their answers. If a community has a strong belief in their historic area, trying to make sure that your answers relate back to that value or that principle that that community holds dear, I think is important. It shows that you've done some research. It shows that you understand the audience that you're talking to. A really easy way for candidates to do that, especially for those higher level positions, is just go to the budget document or the council goal list. Find out what the priorities are for that year and then, really tailor your responses in your interview to what you're read in those documents. Mac Prichard: What kind of role can an online presence play when someone is applying for a job? How can people use online tools to be successful? Kirsten Wyatt: This is something I find very fascinating because for a long time, I think those of us in government felt like we shouldn't have an online presence. That we needed to kind of be these really kind of stiff and boring bureaucrats. Lately, I'm hearing from more and more recruiters that they want to see people who have an online presence that reflects their passion and their interest in public service. One recruiter even told me that they'll look through a Twitter profile. If you're sitting in an interview and you say, "I am passionate about economic development. Economic development is the most important thing and that's why I want this job." Then, they look at your Twitter feed and they realize that all you tweet about are the Kardashians and funny cat pictures, they start to question are you really talking the talk when you are applying for this job. One thing that I've seen and that I've been very proud of from an ELGL perspective, but just also from seeing how, especially younger people are getting their foot in the door in local government, is using platforms like the Mac's List blog, like ELGL, to write and share information about their job hunt or about their career interests and then, parlay that into opportunities. One of my favorite stories, and I know we've talked about Josh before, but a young man out of the University of Oregon wanted to work in government, but he had no experience. He had a ... I think just a general maybe political science degree. He needed to get his foot in the door and so, he started writing about informational interviews that we set up for him. ELGL would set him up with different people in the region and he would sit down with them and kind of pick their brain about their job. It was his chance to kind of get some background about all of the different roles that local government can play. In the course of doing that and writing about it, he had an informational interview with the City of Portland. The woman at the City of Portland was very impressed with his writing ability, also his poise and his presence. She offered him a temporary job and then, that temporary job led to a full-time job. Now, he's getting his master's in accounting and he has a lifetime of local government accounting in front of him, which may not sound that exciting, but I think it's really exciting for him. It's exciting for me to think about someone with that talent and that drive putting themselves out there and then, parlaying that into a full-time local government job. Mac Prichard: I remember that blog series very well. I think it was two or three years ago now. Kirsten Wyatt: It was. Mac Prichard: Can you remind me? What was the title? Was it "Josh is Looking for a Job"? Kirsten Wyatt: It was "Josh's Job Search". Mac Prichard: Right. What so impressed me about it was, I mean, he did the informational interviews and he wasn't afraid to reach out to some high level people. Local mayors and senior people in state government, but then, he went an extra step. He did something I hadn't seen done before, which was to write about it. By doing so, he just grew his circle of contacts and his network exponentially. Kirsten Wyatt: Well, and I think and as you've discussed in your podcast series "Writing Skills" ... It's something that we all want our employees to have, but sometimes it's really hard to measure because when you submit a writing sample, you submit the very best. When you're doing something where you're actively blogging or sharing information using some of these platforms that we have regionally, you're really showing that you can communicate clearly on the fly. That you're a great communicator. We had another guy who graduated from one of the top MBA schools in the nation. He moved out to Portland with no job, which many people do. He took a job as a seasonal worker with the parks and rec department in Tigard. Then, by building out his network, by making sure people knew that he had skills and abilities beyond cleaning bathrooms and mowing lawns, he was able to find full-time work using his network that he built through ELGL with the City of Beaverton. I think, again, it goes to show that sometimes you have to put yourself out there, maybe take a job that you think is beneath you or not exactly what you want. In the process, you're really showing that you're willing to work hard, get the experience you need and then, step into that role where you can make the difference. Mac Prichard: Okay. Well, I think that's a great spot to stop at. Our listeners can find Kirsten online at elgl.org. Also, at Twitter: @elgl50. Again, you'll be able to find these links in the show notes. Thanks for joining us today, Kirsten. Kirsten Wyatt: Wonderful. Thank you for having me. Mac Prichard: Take care. We're back in the Mac's List studio with Ben and Cecilia. Tell me what do you two think were the most important takeaways that you got from our conversation with Kirsten? Cecilia Bianco: I really liked her story about Josh. I think it was a good story to show an example of how someone can show the writing skills that they have and communication skills while building their professional network, which is clearly key no matter what field you're in. Mac Prichard: I like that story, too. I remember reading those blog posts and Josh's personality really shone through. I found myself looking forward to the next installment in the series as it unfolded. How about you, Ben? Ben Forstag: I was excited to hear that governments are modernizing their application systems through the NEOGOV site and other automated tracking systems because I know that government hiring ... It's a really difficult process to navigate if you're not familiar with it. All that being said, even with the new systems, I know it's a difficult field to get into and so, I think Cecilia's point about networking is really important. Mac Prichard: Yeah. I also appreciated her points not only about networking, but just the picture she drew of the process and the different things you could do in reaching out to people, growing your network, how to manage the technical parts of the application. Again, I think I meet people who are interested in working for government, but getting started and navigating that process can be challenging. I think Kirsten has given our listeners a road map for how to move forward. Well, thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. In the meantime, visit us at macslist.org. You can sign up there for our free newsletter with more than a hundred new jobs every week. If you like what you hear on our show, you can help us by leaving a review and rating on iTunes. We have almost seventy ratings now and more than fifty comments. That's helped us stay in the top ten in the iTunes career chart. Thanks for listening.

Writing a winning, stand-out resume can feel like a roadblock to overcome in your job search. Often people experience what we call “resume writer’s block” when applying to a job, especially when dealing with online application systems. To simplify the process, look at your resume as a marketing document that is used to sell yourself to a potential employer as the best fit for the job.Is your resume “smack in the forehead” obvious? Will it get you an interview--or even better, hired for the job? This week on Find Your Dream Job Mac talks with Jenny Foss, a longtime recruiter, job search strategist, and voice behind popular career blog JobJenny.com, which has been named among the Top 100 Career Blogs by Forbes magazine. She also is the author of several job search books, including the Ridiculously Awesome Resume Kit and the Ridiculously Awesome LinkedIn Kit. In this 33-minute episode you will learn: Why it’s so hard to write a good resume and what you can do to make it easier How to beat automated applicant tracking systems The difference between your resume and LinkedIn profile What to include in your resume: Hobbies? Interests? Employment gaps? This week’s guest: Jenny Foss (@JobJenny)Founder, JobJenny.comPresident, Ladder Recruiting GroupPortland, Ore. Listener question of the week: Does my resume have to be one-page? Do you have a question you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Please send your questions to Cecilia Bianco, Mac’s List Community Manager at cecilia@macslist.org. Resources referenced on this week’s show: 12 Horrible Resume Mistakes Spell Check Won’t Catch Six Words that Make Your Resume Suck Can You Find All the Mistakes on This Job-Seeker Resume? “We Don’t Serve Your Type Here”: How to Pick the Right Resume Font JobJenny.com Ridiculously Awesome Resume Kit Ridiculously Awesome LinkedIn Kit Land Your Dream Job in Portland (and Beyond): The Complete Mac’s List Guide Special offer: The latest book from JobJenny.com recently launched, and she’s offering a special deal for all “Find Your Dream Job” listeners! Use discount code “Macslist” when you check out for $15 off the cost of JobJenny’s new book The Ridiculously Awesome Career Pivot Kit, as well as all the guides in her online shop! If you have a job-hunting or career development resource resource you’d like to share, please contact Ben Forstag, Mac’s List Managing Director at ben@macslist.org. -- Thank you for listening to Find Your Dream Job. If you like this show, please help us by rating and reviewing our podcast on iTunes. We appreciate your support! Opening and closing music for Find Your Dream Job provided by Freddy Trujillo, www.freddytrujillo.com.   FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:  Mac Prichard:                      This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life. I'm Mac Prichard, your host, and publisher of Mac's List. Our show is brought to you by Mac's List, your best online source for rewarding creative and meaningful work. Visit macslist.org to learn more. You'll find hundreds of great jobs, a blog with practical career advice, and our new book, "Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond." Thanks for joining us today. We all learn about job openings in different ways. Maybe a headhunter calls you out of the blue or you may find a perfect gig on a job board, or even the old fashioned way, in the classified ads of your local newspaper. However you discover an opportunity, you can be certain you'll be asked to send your resume. What you do next can make a huge difference in your success. Should you write a custom resume for every job? Do employers want to see one or two pages? What format makes the most sense, chronological or functional? Maybe, just maybe, the Reese Witherspoon character in the movie Legally Blonde was on to something when she printed her resume on pink scented paper. After all, it got her into Harvard Law School, didn't it? This week on Find Your Dream Job, we're talking about resumes. We'll start with the mistakes that can send your application straight to the wastebasket. Ben Forstag has three cool resources you can use to avoid resume disasters that even seasoned professionals make. Cecilia Bianco tackles a resume question we get time and time again here at Mac's List, one page or two. Later, we'll be joined by our guest expert, Jenny Foss, founder of JobJenny.com and the author of The Ridiculously Awesome Resume Kit. First, let's check in with the Mac's List team, Ben Forstag and Cecilia Bianco. Crew, how are you doing this week? Cecilia Bianco:                     We're doing good. Ben Forstag:                          Yeah, having a great week. Mac Prichard:                      Good. We had a lot of fun earlier in the week. For people who are in the Pacific Northwest, you may be [inaudible 00:02:12]. We do events occasionally, about eight times a year and we had one this week on Careers in New Media. Cecilia Bianco:                     Mm-hmm (affirmative), how to start or restart a career in communications. Ben Forstag:                          Yeah, it was a great event. We had a 160 people there, a great panel of experts in the field, a lot of great networking. It was real fun. Mac Prichard:                      For people who can't make the trip to Portland, I think there is a recording, isn't there, Ben? Ben Forstag:                          There will be and we'll put that on our website once it's available. Mac Prichard:                      We're not encouraging you to plan your next vacation around the Mac's List schedule, but- Ben Forstag:                          Why not? Mac Prichard:                      -But if you are headed to the Pacific Northwest or you're just here in Portland or working in state or Oregon, pay attention to our blog. You'll see plenty of notice about events. Again, they happen about eight times a year and we would love to see you there. Let's turn to this week's topic, resumes. Okay, Ben, what resources do you have for our listeners? Ben Forstag:                          Mac and Cecilia, have you ever typed resume tips or resume advice or resume help into Google. Cecilia Bianco:                     Oh, yeah. Ben Forstag:                          Mac? Mac Prichard:                      I have, yeah. Ben Forstag:                          You get like a bazillion results? Mac Prichard:                      Yes. Ben Forstag:                          They all say different things? Cecilia Bianco:                     Yup. Mac Prichard:                      Yeah. Ben Forstag:                          Or sometimes they say the same thing, just in different ways? Mac Prichard:                      Right, a lot of conflicting advice out there. Ben Forstag:                          Yeah, so what I've done this week is I picked that three blogs that I thought were particularly good around resume advice and I'm going to briefly talk about each one of those. The first one comes from the Monster.com blog and it's called Twelve Horrible Resume Mistakes Spell Check Won't Catch. The thing I like about this is it's very concise, tight, and pretty conservative list of things you should watch out for. I'm not going to go into each one of the mistakes they say you can make. I'll leave that for our listeners to discover, but I think this is a good list to start with. The other thing I like about this is even though they frame it as horrible mistakes, a lot of these things are tips you can do to write a better resume. It's not all negative. There's some positive spin on it as well. Mac Prichard:                      You have to have a favorite typo that you saw though in that blog post. Did one stand out? Ben Forstag:                          It wasn't typos as much. My favorite piece of advice, and this is just a personal irk I have is using Times New Roman font, which is the default font on Microsoft Office products, or at least it was back in the day. One of their suggestions is just don't do that. Pick another conservative font but not Times New Roman. It's just too standard. Mac Prichard:                      Well, my favorite typo happened when I worked in the governor's office and we had a news release about public health. Somebody left out the L in public, so there's much hilarity after that. Fortunately, the governor had a great sense of humor. Ben Forstag:                          I don't get it, Mac. Just kidding. (Laughing) Okay, the … Mac Prichard:                      We'll let our listeners puzzle over that one. All right, so Twelve Horrible Resume Mistakes Spell Check Won't Catch. Ben Forstag:                          That's on the Monster.com blog. Mac Prichard:                      All right, and that will be in the show notes. Ben Forstag:                          All of these will be in the show notes because I'll spare you the long URLs. The second one I wanted to point out was Six Words that Make Your Resume Suck. Now, these aren't dirty words or swear words, but they are mundane expressions that litter a lot of mediocre resumes. Let me go back. This is from the Squawkfox blog which is primarily a personal finance blog, but the writer put quite a few blog post together about resume writing. Let me just go through quickly these words, they're actually phrases, that make a resume suck. There's things like, the phrases, "Responsible for," "Experienced in," "Excellent communication skills," "Team player," "Detail-oriented," and "Successful." Now, the author's issue with these is not that the concepts are bad; it's just that you're telling people about what you do instead of showing experiences that display those skills. Her emphasis is don't tell people you are responsible for something, just tell them what you did. Don't say that you're a great team player. Show an experience that shows that you're a good team player. Employers can read between the lines and figure things out. The last blog post I want to share about, this is one that I particularly liked because I'm someone who learns best through practice and I like this post because it gives me a chance to apply the do's and don'ts of resume writing. It's Can You Find All the Mistakes on this Job-Seeker Resume? This is available on the Quint Careers blog. Essentially, they give you a resume and challenge you to go find all the problems with it. Mac Prichard:                      This is like finding Waldo in your resume? Ben Forstag:                          It's a little bit easier than finding Waldo. Some of them are really clear. Like at one point, I think they used Comic Sans as the font. Cecilia Bianco:                     Oh no, not Comic Sans. Ben Forstag:                          I see you're a type snob. You're just like me, Cecilia. Cecilia Bianco:                     Yup. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mac Prichard:                      Yeah. Let's dig in to that a little deeper. I didn't know you were so passionate about Comic Sans. Cecilia Bianco:                     Oh yeah. I wrote a blog post about how you should not use Comic Sans. It's just the worst font ever. It just looks like so unprofessional. It's comical to me. Ben Forstag:                          Yeah. Unless you're like writing a poster for a lost dog or something or the carnival is coming through town, don't use Comic Sans. Mac Prichard:                      All right. Ben Forstag:                          In this sample resume, some of the mistakes are really easy to find. Some of them take a little bit more investigation. I believe the author said there were 15 different mistakes in the resume. I only caught 14. I think it's worthwhile to go through and test what you've learned through reading the other materials that's on the Internet and what you hear today. That's again on the Quint Careers blog. I'll have the links for all three of these blog posts in the show notes. Mac Prichard:                      Great. Let's be sure to link to Cecilia's post- Ben Forstag:                          Of course. Mac Prichard:                      -Of Comic Sans. That one must have slipped on me because I don't remember it. I look forward to reading it. Well, thanks, Ben. If you have a suggestions for Ben, and I think you are hearing from listeners now where this is Episode 9 that we're recording. Ben Forstag:                          Yeah. I want to give a quick shout out to our listener Russell who was the first person to reach out to me with a suggestion for a resource. He suggested a book which I will definitely be reading and share my thoughts on at a later date. Mac Prichard:                      Okay. Ben is standing by his computer. We've heard him on the keyboard before so if you've got an idea for the show, his address is ben@macslist.org. Now let's turn to you, our listeners. Cecilia, let's talk about resumes and what's your resume question of the week? Cecilia Bianco:                     Yeah. The question this week is "Does my resume have to be one page?" We get this question all the time and people are always Googling this. I don't really think that resumes have to be one page. I do think that aiming to keep it to one page is a good tactic to help you focus your resume to each job that you're applying for. Lately, I've been reading a lot of articles about this and they're saying that the one-page resume rule is dead. While that's hard for me to believe because previously people were saying resumes longer than a page are thrown out, not even read. I think that it might be true. Would either of you throw out a resume if it was two pages long? Ben Forstag:                          I don't know if I'd throw one out. I do know that if it was a hard and fast rule, you can't have a two-page resume, I would never have a job. My resume is two pages and I think it's a pretty focused resume at that. I try to put only things in that are germane to the job I'm applying for or have been applying for. The best thing I've heard about this, I think it was actually Job Jenny who said this. That the important thing is the quality, the focus of the material in that resume, and you can't imagine any employer saying, "This is the perfect candidate for resume," but their resume is two pages long. No. That doesn't happen. Cecilia Bianco:                     Yeah. Mac Prichard:                      I'm in the two-page resume camp. Mine personally has been two pages, in part, because I'm much farther along in my career. I agree with Ben that if you've got the background and the skills and the experience to justify it, two pages is okay. Cecilia Bianco:                     Yeah, I agree. I don't see an employer throwing a resume out for this reason, especially if all the experience is valid. I think the one-page rule is more for new graduates and students, because I think they're the groups that will tend to list more things on their resume that they need and just add duties and responsibilities that aren't really helpful to them. I think it depends what your background is, but it's definitely not a hard and fast rule anymore. Ben Forstag:                          I can see that making sense for a new graduate, somebody who doesn't have a whole lot of experience. Cecilia Bianco:                     Yeah, definitely. Mac Prichard:                      Okay, so two pages is okay, but think carefully about your content and make the best case possible. Cecilia Bianco:                     Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mac Prichard:                      Great. Thanks, Cecilia. If you have a question for Cecilia, her email address is cecilia@macslist.org. These segments by Ben and Cecilia are sponsored by the Mac's List Guides, publisher of our new book, Land Your Dream Job in Portland and Beyond. The Mac's List Guide gives you the tools you need to get the job you want. We'll show you how to crack the hidden job market, stand out in a competitive field, and how to manage your career. The book has eight chapters. In each chapter, expert shared job hunting secrets like how to hear about jobs that are never posted and what you can do to interview and negotiate like a pro. You can get the first chapter of the book for free. Just go to macslist.org/macslistguides. Now, it's time to hear from our expert and we have a terrific expert joining us today. Jenny Foss is a long time recruiter, job search strategist, and the voice behind the popular career blog, JobJenny.com. It's been named one of the Top 100 career blogs by Forbes. She's also the author of several job search books including one we're going to talk a lot about today, The Ridiculously Awesome Resume Kit. Jenny, thanks for joining us. Jenny Foss:                             Thank you for having me. Mac Prichard:                      Yeah, it's a pleasure. Now, Jenny, a resume is a short document. Whether it's one or two pages and our listeners heard earlier we're on the two page camp here at Mac's List, but it ranges between 500 to 1,000 words. Why is it so hard to write one? Jenny Foss:                             It's hard to write for a lot of reasons. Number one, a lot of people have a level of discomfort to say the least when it comes to writing about themselves in a way that's going to properly market themselves to whatever audience that they're trying to go after. It feels awkward. We've been trained as we grow up not to brag, not to boast, and frankly, this is exactly what you need to do in a strategic way when you're constructing a resume. Then the secondary challenge is we don't understand how the game works a lot of the time. We don't understand how resumes can exhaust our works and what it will be your resume is going to be reviewed on and how to get it through the system, how to make it enticing to the human reviewers. It's so hard for a lot of people, even people who are exceptional writers because there's just so much to consider when you're constructing one. Mac Prichard:                      Okay, you flagged a lot of good points there. Let's separate them and break them down a bit. Let's talk about … Jenny Foss:                             Let's break it down. Mac Prichard:                      Yeah. We'll put it into short manageable chunks, which I think may be one of the tactics that you recommend in resume writing. I want to go back to a point you made about strategy. I think sometimes people think a resume is just about reciting facts. Jenny, tell our listeners why a "just the facts, ma'am" approach is usually not effective when you write a resume and the advantages of making strategic choices. Jenny Foss:                             Because it's a marketing document. It's a marketing document that you're using to try and entice an audience, a decision maker. It's not an autobiography. It's not a list of every last thing you ever did. It's a marketing document and therefore you have to figure out what does my audience care about or what will they likely care about or be looking for and how can I position myself as a logical match or as a great solution for those things that I know that they're going to care about. Yes, please lose the list mentality when it comes to a resume. Mac Prichard:                      Okay, so think about your audiences, their needs, the problems they have, and how you can solve them. You mentioned earlier automated tracking systems and automation is everywhere in the workplace including the human resource office. When computers review our resumes, what can we do to stop a machine from sending our resume straight to the slash pile? Jenny Foss:                             In a perfect world, you bypass the machine all together and you get right to the decision maker or somebody in the HR team. However, I know that that's unrealistic in a lot of instances. If you are intending to send your resume through an online application process, you have to assume that's going to go through an applicant tracking system, which is the database that sits at the front end of the recruitment process and looks for best matched candidates. Primarily, you want to make sure that your resume is robust in keywords that are common and specific to the type of job you're pursuing and also that you've got standard headers, you've got straightforward formatting because the system won't easily read and parse if you've got a resume that's got wild graphics or an unusual font. Mac Prichard:                      Again, think about your audience and strategy and think about the automation or the algorithms that might be scanning your resume. What about when people get stuck? You talked about how people should approach writing, but are there tips and tricks you have for people who just can't get started or are spending way too much time in their resume? Jenny Foss:                             One of the best things to do if you can't figure out what to highlight is to study three, four job descriptions that are very appealing to you, lay them out side by side and figure out what are the overlapping requirements or preferred qualifications that keep coming up on these job descriptions that are attracting me. That's probably a very good indicator of what these decision makers are going to be looking for and what the scanning software is going to be reading for. Make sure that you position yourself as a solution or as a match to those things. If you're feeling stuck, it might just be time to review some job descriptions before you make yourself crazy trying to figure this all out. Mac Prichard:                      Now, in addition to your books and working with job seekers as a counselor and coach, you've worked as a recruiter. You talked to employers a lot. When you speak to employers, what do they say about resumes that stand out? What do people do to make their resume stand out and what are some of their complaints that they share with you about resumes that they don't take a second look at? Jenny Foss:                             The most basic rule of thumb as to what makes a great resume, and this comes from feedback from my corporate recruiting clients or corporate decision makers and from the work I've done for the last several years as Job Jenny, is the easier you can make it for your target audience to make a quick connection between here's what we need and here's what Mac Prichard can walk through our doors and deliver, the better the odds are that they're going to invite you in for an interview. That's all you're using this resume for is to land an interview. You want to make sure that you make perfect sense and from a reviewer stand point, they want to quickly scan your resume and see how and why you are a good fit for that job. They're not going to deduce that for you. They're not going to say, "Oh, well, he's done this. Maybe he can do this. Oh, he's got this background. Perhaps he'd be able to go do this." You've got to make it what I call smack in the forehead obvious why you're there and why they should contact you. Mac Prichard:                      We've talked about strategy, audience, content. What about layout and design? How much time should people spend not only looking a thing about topography, but rules and colors and paper? Jenny Foss:                             Well, it's an interesting question because the answer depends on if you are intending to apply for jobs through an online application or if you're always going to get that resume to a decision maker directly via email or handing it over. The reason there's a difference is when you're giving it to somebody directly, you've got plenty of latitude in how you can design it, how much layer you can have on it if you're using color and graphics and things like that, because it's not going to go through the resume scanning software. However, most of us, at least some of the time, are applying for things online and so you have to be very mindful to make it straightforward in layout, common PC fonts. You've got to save it in a doc format and you need to understand how the scanning software works because then you can make sure that you're laying this thing out in a way that's actually going to be applicant tracking system friendly. You know what, Mac, I understand. Like everyone might be sitting there thinking, "Well, that sounds like a big pain in the butt." Yeah, it is, but it's a bigger pain in the butt if you aren't getting through the resume scanning software over and over and over again because you've got some layout issues or formatting issues. Mac Prichard:                      A lot of our listeners apply for jobs at smaller organizations, non-profits or public agencies or private employers, how widespread is the use of automated tracking systems in resume review? Jenny Foss:                             Very. I think it's 70 to 80 percent of companies and recruiting agencies are using some form of software to help them manage their recruitment process. In smaller companies, say you see something on Craigslist or Mac's List and that gives you a direct email address to send to a human, then you can use your stylized format resume and save it as a PDF so it will retain the design elements no matter what platform the other person is looking at it from, but then it's less of an issue. If you don't know or if you are applying for something through an online application as opposed to emailing it to someone, you should probably assume that there is some kind of scanning software at play. Mac Prichard:                      We're talking today, Jenny, about resumes, but you can't manage your career or look for your next job effectively without having a LinkedIn profile. Talk to us about the difference between a resume and a LinkedIn profile. Jenny Foss:                             Well, for job seekers, the main difference is with LinkedIn, you're trying to entice a recruiter or a hiring manager to get to your profile and then once they do, to learn enough about you to whet their appetite to contact you whereas with the resume, you're telling it all. I don't want to say at all but it's a more comprehensive view of you.       LinkedIn, I use the analogy often, if your resume is your Wall Street Journal version of you, LinkedIn is more the USA Today style. It's a little bit more bite-sized, a little bit more conversational because the platform is designed to facilitate conversation, and … This is important to remember … no recruiter wants to scroll until the end of time to get to the bottom of your profile. They're going through a lot of LinkedIn profiles every single day. You want to find that balance between giving them enough information so they know what you're about without torturing the reviewer with a really super long LinkedIn profile. Mac Prichard:                      You mentioned that a resume should be more comprehensive. What kind of personal information should people include in a resume in your experience? What should they say about hobbies or interests, travel, that kind of thing? Jenny Foss:                             I think some of that is dependent on the type of industry you're in and the type of role you're gunning for. For instance, if you're a high level executive, chances are you don't need to include a lot about, "I like listening to music with my kids." I mean that's just weird. If you're applying for, say, a role in a lifestyle company which we have plenty of those out in the Oregon market, maybe you include that you're a kayaker or you do dragon boating because that could actually be a great conversation starter. I would say you always want to gauge and certainly never include anything that could be controversial or polarizing. I mean generally speaking, like political and controversial clubs, associations, things like that, probably best to leave them off. Mac Prichard:                      We're coming to the close of our interview shortly. I want to though move into a rapid fire round, Jenny. Jenny Foss:                             Okay, yeah. Mac Prichard:                      Ask you some common resume questions that we get at Mac's List. Jenny Foss:                             Yeah, go ahead. Mac Prichard:                      Cecilia and Ben and I hear this a lot at our events and our one-on-one meetings with people. What's your best advice about how listeners should address the following: gap years. Jenny Foss:                             Your best defense is almost always a good offense. If there's a quick and easy explanation that you can add to one or the other of the jobs, the earlier one or the one that preceded it, say like, "Following a family relocation to the Pacific Northwest, accepted a role as blah, blah, blah" or "Following a full-time enrollment in the XYZ program …" What you're doing is explaining the gap without apologizing for it. Mac Prichard:                      How about time spend raising children or caring for a parent or family member? Jenny Foss:                             Again, best defense is a good offense. "Following an extended illness or caretaking assignment for an ill family member, blah, blah, blah" or if you have 6, 7, 10 years that you haven't done anything in the workplace but maybe you went back to school for a while, sometimes it's better to rearrange the sections of your resume, put the education at the top and the experience lower so that instantly when the reviewer looks at it, they understand that you've actually been a student for the last 3, 4, or 5 years. It eases the gap and it gets that right in front of their eyeballs high up in the resume. Consider the order if you have some time off. Mac Prichard:                      Okay, speaking of order, strategic objective at the top or not at all? Jenny Foss:                             Not at all. I would do … Well, because we all know that your objective is to find a job and most every objective is just fluff and no stuff. Why not use that area at the top of your resume to do more of a career summary that highlights who you are and in what you specialize with your specific target audience in mind. You have a perfect opportunity to showcase you as a solution to those very things that you know your future employer is looking for in a summary section. Mac Prichard:                      For people who are sending their resume electronically, PDF or Word file? Jenny Foss:                             Word. Mac Prichard:                      Why not a PDF? Jenny Foss:                             Some applicant tracking systems, particularly those that are old and/or way less robust, so you're thinking small organizations, they have a difficult time reading and parsing the information in a PDF into the correct data fields. Your best bet is to go with a doc file. Mac Prichard:                      Final question, Jenny. A lot of our listeners are interested in career changes. What's your advice about how to write a resume as people prepare to make a career pivot? Jenny Foss:                             Well, you need to not only make yourself make sense for the new industry that you're going into, in whatever way you can, but if you have some background that actually might make you even more advantageous of a candidate than somebody who perhaps has taken a linear path through that industry that you're trying to break into, spell out how that equation works; like X + Y equals an even more appealing candidate. For instance, say you've been an engineer and you're trying to break into accounting and maybe you have been doing the books at your wife's photography business for the last 3, 5 years. First of all, you make sure you showcase that prominently on your resume. In that summary section, you spell out that you've got the engineering experience plus the bookkeeping experience and then what does it equal. Find some way in which your experience as an engineer or as whatever you've been in the past actually has given you some background that will make you better at what you're doing as an accountant than maybe somebody who's just taken that linear path. Mac Prichard:                      Okay. Well, thank you, Jenny. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. For people who want to learn more about Job Jenny and her books and her services, visit JobJenny.com. Jenny, I know when you and I talked before the show, you have a special offer for our listeners that you want to tell us about it? Jenny Foss:                             Sure. We have just recently launched our latest book which is The Ridiculously Awesome Career Pivot Kit. As you mentioned, we also have a couple of other titles including The Ridiculously Awesome Resume Kit. We have set up a discount code or a promo code which is simply Macslist, all one word, and any of the listeners who would like to have a $15 discount off of any of our books which are in the shop, just use the Macslist discount code at check out and you'll get $15 off through the end of December. Mac Prichard:    Great. We'll be sure to include that in the show notes along with the instructions about how to take advantage of that offer. Thank you, again, Jenny. Jenny Foss:           Thank you. You guys have a good one. John Sepulvado:                 Hi, I'm John. I'm the producer of Find Your Dream Job. I want to encourage you to go iTunes and rate the show. You can leave a comment because when you do this, you help others find out about Find Your Dream Job. People like PDX Media, that's their username, she says, "I'm skeptical of podcasts that take my valuable time repeating information I've already read on the web, but this show is exactly the opposite. Mac and his team have created an essential job seeking tool with valuable tips, advice, and analysis in a perfectly sized show. Bravo!" PDX Media, thank you. You can join her and more than 50 others who've left comments. Go to macslist.org and find the link to our iTunes page. Do it now and share this with your friends because everyone should have a chance to find their dream job. Now, we return back to the show. Here's Mac Prichard. Mac Prichard:    We're here in the studio with Ben and Cecilia. As you two reflect on the interview, what were some of the key takeaways for you? Ben Forstag:        I think the big one for me was keeping your resume in the Word file format. I had always thought that the PDF format was best just to keep the formatting stable when you mail it. That was a new one for me. Cecilia Bianco:   Yeah, same. That was interesting. I also thought probably her most important point was that a resume is a marketing document and it's now somewhere you're going to list everything you've ever done. You need to be strategic with it and not just have an autobiography. Mac Prichard:    Yeah, I so agree with you, Cecilia, because I do think people think it's a kind of laundry list of career responsibilities, not even accomplishments. To your point, the more strategic someone can be and to think of it as a marketing document, I think the more successful they'll be. Cecilia Bianco:   Yeah. Mac Prichard:    Okay. Thanks for listening. We're grateful to the scores of people who have left ratings and reviews for our show on iTunes. This helps other discover Find Your Dream Job and we appreciate it. If you have a chance, please visit iTunes and let us know what you think. Feel free to leave questions and suggestions for the show and we'll be sure to act on those. We'll be back next week with more tools and tips you can use to find your dream job. In the meantime, you can always visit us at macslist.org where you can sign up for a free newsletter with more than a hundred new jobs every week. Thanks for listening.