How To Be A Professional Career Coach & Accelerator (Top 1% In The World) - w/ Melissa

When you see a resume, what are some of the things that you love are? I don't think every bullet should be quantifiable for some number because it's going to start to look fabricated. So what are your talk-o-to resume sections for these people with really little work experience? You've got to stand out because I can guarantee you no recruiter is going through 2000 reps. If the absolute worst case for a scenario is you getting no response, that really doesn't feel such a bad outcome to me in the long run. Especially given the best case changes your own life.

There are so many people that contact me that were laid off, they had no idea it was coming. They were completely blindsided. They have no LinkedIn profile to speak of. They have no resume to speak of. The banner behind your name, first thing that people see. Do you have any tips and tricks that you share with job seekers around repurums and/or asking for repurums? So you're sending out hundreds of resumes and you're not hearing anything, something's not working.

Welcome to the Ready Said Do podcast, where we discuss journeys of not experts who are just two steps ahead of us. The internet, especially LinkedIn offers a leverage that is simply unheard of. What I'm referring to is, to my own shock and horror, it was revealed to me that my LinkedIn profile, which I thought was great, was actually far from optimized. In addition to that, Melissa goes over job searching, networking strategies, and interview tips that she continually shares with students as well as professionals that contact her on top-mate.

For free, of course, just for this exclusive episode. This is the Ready Said Do podcast and to support it, please subscribe to the channel and/or leave me up to a five-star rating on Spotify. And now, without any further ado, my friends, here's Melissa. I always think about recruiters in the sense that you all are so underrated in terms of how much impact you have on people's lives and just how direct that impact is sort of.

So I don't know if you'd agree, but from the outside, it really does feel like it's one of the most important jobs of our times, and I really feel like recruiters really aren't appreciated enough, you know? Yeah, you know, I love being in recruiting to be able to, exactly to your point, to be able to, you know, extend job offers to people, changes the lives of those families, and that's really impactful. The flip side of being in talent acquisition, which is difficult, is having the conversations with candidates when they don't get a job and they spend time interviewing, and so that's the challenging part of my job.

It's very hard to have those conversations, but I feel like I'm so lucky because through recruiting, I meet so many great people, and I'm giving new jobs to these people, and I wouldn't change my career for anything. And then, you know, when I help these job seekers, and they reach out to me and say, "Oh, my God, Melissa, you know, you helped me with my resume, and all of a sudden I have so many more recruiters reaching out to me," or "I just received a job offer," and a lot of my business is referrals, so it's former clients referring people, other people, you know, that's really rewarding to me, and that's the best form of compliment to me is when I get referrals. That's like the best, so it's been fun. I feel very lucky.

Yeah, and we'll be kind of drilling down a little bit into the work that you've been doing with the business that you've started around helping job seekers on LinkedIn and elsewhere, just a little bit. But before that, I kind of want to begin our discussion with, you know, like just deep dive on the fascinating world of resumes. And I say that with, I don't know if that's very evident, but a lot of sarcasm because being in the market myself, it's just one of those, you know, almost black box areas where you're like, "Yeah, I think I know what it's supposed to be like, but there's also no, you know, like, there's no boilerplate that you can fall like everybody's resume has to be very unique and distinct, but it also must be good."

So I guess my question to you from the other side of the table is, when you see a resume, what are some of the things that you look for? And on that same note or maybe a related note, what are some instant pitfalls that immediately come to your attention and that tell you that maybe this isn't the most strongest candidate behind this. One of the most important things about a resume that a lot of people don't realize is that it's not enough anymore simply to list what your duties and responsibilities have been in the past. It's those quantifiable achievements.

So it's saying, not only this is what I did, but this is the impact of what I did. So whether it's, you know, increasing costs, increasing efficiency, it's using percentages, it's using numbers and it's taking your duties and responsibilities a step further. So I'll give you an example. There was a job seeker I coached the other day who was a recruiter. And so I was like, I could definitely help her. And when I looked at the resume, it simply stated like, I feel these roles, but there was no substance around it.

But there wasn't any sort of like, these were the number of roles. These were the level of roles. This was my time to fill. This was my candidate acceptance rate. And I think that with any, for most jobs, there's ways that you can quantify your achievements. And again, it's not, it's the job market is so challenging right now that people have to find a way to differentiate themselves. So what I do is when I put job seekers, I look at their like specific situation.

I look at why they're looking for a new position, what kind of role they're looking for. And then based on that, I help them kind of strategize. Okay. This is what I think you should include. This is what I think you don't need to include. What I see a lot of job seekers do, especially people that have been working for many years is they'll include in, you know, experience from like 25 years ago. Well, technologies change every year and things that were relevant in, you know, the year 2000 are not necessarily relevant now.

And so the other thing is, and as much as I hate to say this, the truth is, is that there is a lot of ages in that takes place. And so. Interesting. A lot of people do is they, they go so far back in their resume where I don't want anyone to have, I don't want to recruit or ever have a reason to turn. And I'm not seeing this happens all the time, but it does happen where recruiters might say, well, I don't want to hire someone that's 55 years old.

Well, if you go back 30 years on your resume, it's going to clearly show your age. And so just keep the most relevant information, quantify your achievements. Make the resume look and feel good. I say always include your LinkedIn URL at the top of your resume. It's not enough anymore. You need to include like your phone number. You have to include your LinkedIn URL. Don't include your entire address city and state is sufficient. And the other thing I say is that it's okay to indicate on a resume why you're no longer at a company.

You know, with so many people being laid off, specifically since COVID, there's a lot of people I speak to that have had like three jobs in five years. And I think it's okay to indicate like why you're no longer there because I don't want a recruiter to look at a resume and automatically disqualify someone because in their mind that person is a job hacker when a lot of times, you know, people are getting laid off. It's not their fault. It's better to explain that on a resume. And then this way recruiters won't necessarily make an assumption.

Would that just be via the last bullet say of that particular job experience, you can just be like lead off during the mass layoffs in June 24 or something cash. Typically what I say is the way the layout of resume is at the very top, put your name and then one long line under that, your email address, your city and state, your phone number and your LinkedIn URL. And then I think it's really good to have like a highlight section where you list four or five bullet points. That's really the highlight of your career and the things that you're most proud of and the things that you want employers to know about you.

And then start with your most recent position and then work your way down. Now my son's in college so his resume because doesn't have a lot of work experience his education is going to be at the top. Who's been working, I would say put your education at the very bottom, start your education again with the most recent position work your way down. And then have bullet points. I'm not a big fan of paragraphs looks like he's job puts the name of the company under the name, but your job title.

And then put your dates of employment. And there I think is where you can indicate why you're no longer in the company. I see. And then I would say anywhere from like seven to 10 bullet points for position using quantifiable figures, making sure the verbs are in either, you know, current tense if you're currently working past tense if it was a former job. I think the lookout has to be very crisp on a resume because typically recruiters aren't spending a whole lot of time for resume to be so pleasing aesthetically that you want to give a recruiter a reason to really want to learn more about you.

And the more pleasing it is to look at over resume. I think that's better. I get asked a lot of questions about resume length. I am not a big fan of resumes ever over three pages. I don't think anyone ever needs to have a resume or three pages. Someone like myself who's been working for 20 years, 25 years. I, you know, my resume is two and a half pages. I simply couldn't get it last. And that's okay. My son who's in college, his resumes one page, because he doesn't have that much work experience. So I don't think there's like a magic number. I think it depends on how long you've been working.

But I would say as a general rule of thumb, no more than three pages. I've seen resumes that are like over 10 pages and I'm like, oh, no one's going to read a resume that's over, you know, over anything. So try to try and try to keep it concise and clear and clean. And again, those quantifiable achievements. I cannot stress enough how important that is. Don't just list what you did at your job. What was the impact of what you did. That's what I was having such a, such a discussion with one of my friends that like, so he's about to join a master's course at Purdue. He was trying to make his resume.

You know, so, so as he's going to be applying to internships and such. So I told him about this, you know, quantify everything and each of your resume bullets must answer the question so what's like you did XYZ. But so what right like what was the impact from that. And he said, I've been giving these percentages so reduce, you know, like increased process efficiency by 20% or whatever. And then he was like, I just feel in my head that if I have those percentages for every bullet point, it starts to look almost a bit facetious. It almost starts to feel like I'm making these numbers up.

And I didn't really have a response to that. So I guess I figured I asked an expert. Yeah. What's your take on that? No, I agree with you. I don't think every bullet should be a quantifiable number because I agree to your point. It's going to start to look fabricated in a way because there are things that we all do in a job that you can't quantify those results. Like, for example, you know, I've been on the talent acquisition leadership teams for all of the jobs I've ever had. That's on my resume, but there's no quantifiable numbers or figures or percentages that I can put next to that.

But it's something that I did. I would say for any given job, try to list anywhere, depending on your role, two to four quantifiable achievements. Keep those at the top of your duties and responsibilities within each job, but certainly an entire resume should not be filled with numbers and percentages because then it looks, I believe it looks fabulous. And the other thing I would say, too, is that people need to be able to talk through that. So, you know, when I coach job seekers, I always say, never lying your resume, never stretch the truth, because if you're asked a question in an interview, you have to be able to speak to what's on your resume.

And it's always better to be truthful. And then the other thing is that, you know, there are a lot of people that, you know, it's because it's such a hard, challenging job market. There are people that, you know, I've spoken to that say, yeah, I embellished a little bit on my resume and I said, well, you don't want to do that because you get hired. And then you go into this company and your company is going to think you're going to, you're able to do more than you are because you put that on your resume. It's always better to be truthful, never really embellish it. But again, you don't want your entire resume to be just saturated with percentages and numbers.

It's, I wouldn't write about that. Yeah, it sounds like, I mean, what I'm hearing is, while you can in other places in life, make it till you make it a resume is probably not ideal place to, to, you know, do, do such a thing. Right. And I guess the last really, you know, call out on the this whole resume deep type is for people that have work experiences of five years or less. And honestly, I think I'm right and probably, again, there's different. There's some exceptions, but for the most part, those people should have like one page resume for five years or less. Would you mostly agree to that.

I agree with that. And with the education always at the bottom. Yeah, contact information always on top. The education always at the bottom. You don't necessarily have to put the year you graduated with your degree. So what employers care about is the fact that you have a degree for those positions that it's mandated that someone has a degree, but one page, I think, for sure, if you've been working five years or less.

I think it's very doable to get your resume on one page. Yeah. And then on that same note now for people that have around two years of experience, that's where it gets a bit tricky because then you're supposed to almost, you know, make a choice between either your projects or your extracurricular activities because otherwise your resume would just be empty. So between the two, or if you have any other fields that you've seen that make a lot of sense, what would you advise for maybe, you know, as you were referencing your son who's like Justin college doesn't have experience like just because he hasn't worked yet.

So what are your top go to resume almost sections for these people with really little or very few work experience. Yeah, I would say if anyone took any leadership roles within like an organization at college, my son was on the bowling team so he has that resume. And even on his resume, he goes back to some of the extracurriculars he did in high school because they were so great and so important to kind of resume and really impressive that I said, and he's a he's going to be a senior in college, but, but so on his resume, he has his, you know, internships at the top.

Leadership experienced before that and then prior to that's with the bottom of the resume it's some of the things that he actually didn't high school are really important to call out because it does tie back to some of the leadership things that he was involved in. And I think a lot of it too is that it's really on a case by case basis person really depends on what what were the leadership things they did, or what were the organizations that they were part of what you know, even if someone's like in the Greek system or in a sorority fraternity. What was your role? Were you just a member or were you, you know, like my younger son, he's in a fraternity at school, and he is on one of the committees and like that's a leadership, you know, role that he will definitely have on his resume.

And that's why like when I work with job seekers I really dig dig deep and dive into their story and kind of really tell me about your background so we can capitalize on all this and shine you in the best life possible, because with again, you know, because the initiative, people have to find ways to differentiate themselves. One of the things I also coach job seekers about and I talked about on my LinkedIn live yesterday is that it's not enough anymore to apply to a job and kind of sit back and wait for a recruiter to call you it's taking an extra step of finding out ideally who are these decision makers who are these recruiters, find out who they are send them a message directly on LinkedIn. That's how you're able to differentiate yourself and, you know, like I mentioned on the

call yesterday, I found my job by sending a note to the CEO of my company. It was, I had no idea if she was going to respond and she did and two weeks later I had a job offer and I kind of went into that knowing that there was a really good chance that she wouldn't respond but I'm like if I don't try. I don't know. And if this is the difference between me finding a job or not. I'm going to take those extra steps. That's what people need to do nowadays to differentiate themselves in this job market because, you know, I go on LinkedIn and I see job posting some of them have over 2000 applicants. You got to stand out because I can guarantee you no recruiter is going through. There's just no way. Yeah. No way. It's funny. We were talking about this, you know briefly when we were sinking before this particular recording but

it's kind of the same like your story around what you said about reaching out to the CEO of this company. For me, you were this almost the CEO of this, you know, really big company that I honestly, I was like there's just no way I could ever possibly get a response from you but at your point it's like, you know, it's the same goes close mouths never get fed. And if the absolute worst case for a scenario is you getting no response. That clearly doesn't feel such a bad outcome to me in the long, especially given the best case changes your

life. You know, it's really as simple as that. No, I absolutely agree. And I always believe that we always have to be our own best advocates and our own best cheerleaders. And if you don't go after something, you're never going to know. And to me, and I talk about this with my sons all the time is you don't want to live a life with regrets you know, like, Oh, God, I should have done this or I wish I did this. And if you don't go for it, you never know. And again, the worst case scenario is you're not going to hear back from someone but at least you know you tried. And the best case scenario is you are going to hear back

from someone. Yeah. And that one conversation can change the trajectory of your life. I mean, you know, the other thing I was mentioning on the LinkedIn live yesterday was like I said I was at a company for 18 years and when I got laid off. I literally reached out to everybody in my network and one of the gentlemen I reached out to years ago was a consultant on my team. And we stayed in touch for the years and I was like, Mark, I got laid off. Do you know of any opportunities in his company was hiring recruiters.

And if I reach out to him, there's no way I because they never advertised the position. So it was almost like the job market where sometimes when you talk to people and you have those conversations that's when you're going to learn about these, these job opportunities that aren't necessarily on a company website or are not posted. If I didn't reach out to him, I wouldn't have ever had a job. And I'm so glad that I reached out to him. And so that's why I say when, you know, I talked to job seekers is literally write down everybody you know, former colleagues, you know, relatives, friends, and people genuinely want to help.

You know, when people reach out to me like I will help anyone as much as I can. I think people genuinely want to help. And again, the worst that can happen is you contact someone and you don't hear back. But again, you know, you tried. And so it's almost like nothing ventured nothing gained. I think there's a few different really things that jump out from what you've been sharing about the work that you've been doing with job seekers.

I think it's so important to be able to bounce that off an external person about your experiences because often we have like, you know, we've done things that are valuable to put on a resume. But in our own heads, we're almost like, yeah, that's probably not going to amount to anything. That's probably useless. But then when you share that with an external person that actually knows this stuff, that's where they can be like, hold on a second, that was actually really relevant.

Why don't you put that on your resume and often that can be the big difference between you getting a callback versus not. So, yeah, I mean, I truly appreciate the amazing work that you've been doing with all of these job seekers. So, yeah, really hope you continue to do that and continue to change lives. So shifting gears just a little bit. I want to talk about job search, you know, job search strategies, specifically on LinkedIn.

So I guess for the, for the next 10 minutes, let's pretend that I'm somebody that knows that has a decent LinkedIn. Maybe it's not 10 or 10, but I have my most of my basic stuff is, you know, already good to go. I have a strong header that, you know, does a good job of summarizing my experiences. I have my resume on there. I have a good headshot. I'm using the panel space effectively. So say I have my house in order, so to speak. What is a good way for me to align on a strategy that works for me, and maybe a way to think of that is if you think of the strategy of having two parts.

Having applying to jobs in the second being networking. What would you say would be a decent breakup of time in between those two, and, or if there's, you know, other things that I should be doing that I probably didn't mention right then. Yeah, no, it's a great question. So I think everybody really needs to have an optimized LinkedIn profile. Okay. So this is why I say this, that there are so many people that contact me that were laid off. They had no idea it was coming. They were completely blindsided. They have no LinkedIn profile will speak of.

They have a right. They don't have a network. They haven't been active on LinkedIn, and all of a sudden they're panicking and they're scrambling saying, Oh my God, I don't know what to do. And I'll tell you this happens all the time that people are laid off and they had no idea that it was coming. I talked to people and people were talking to me all over the world on LinkedIn like every day. And what I am most of these people are completely blindsided by a layoff. I mean, these are people that have been 30 year employees, senior vice presidents, really, really strong employers. But let's say you work in health care and your company has a bad FDA on it.

Or let's say that the stock market tanks in the company has to lay out 10,000 people like no one is immune from a layout. There's many, many reasons why people are laid off. And so you could be the best performer in the world and huge money maker. It doesn't mean that your job is safe. So what I always say, and I post about this on LinkedIn too, is that everyone at a minimum should have an optimized LinkedIn profile.

So definitely like to your point, you want to have a professional picture, the banner behind your name, that rectangular box is prime real estate. It's the first thing that you'll see on your profile. So what I always suggested people is go to Canva, C-A-N-V-A, personalize your banner. It doesn't have to be crazy. You know, just personalize it, have some words there that talk about what is your value proposition. What do you know about you? And then under your name, I also consider very prime, what I call LinkedIn real estate. So, yeah, instead of saying, for example, I'm a sales associate at Dell Technologies.

Don't use that space to say where you work and what you do, use that space to talk about who you are. Maybe something I will give men's use a couple different phrases. So like for me, for example, under my name, it doesn't say where I work. It doesn't say my job title, because if someone wants to know that they can go down on my profile. What I want people to know about me is that I'm a global TA leader, that I'm ranked high in terms of, you know, winning creators, that I'm a business advisor. That's what I want people to know about me. And then I also say that people should optimize their about sections.

There's a section on LinkedIn, it's called about, and talk about who you are, what are your, what are your some of your achievements, you know, use that space to make it so you people read that are going to want to talk to you make it interesting. Yeah, a little bit about personal stuff like I think I put on mine like I am a job search coach and I am a yoga instructor and things like that. And then for the experience, what I say is under your experience under each job.

Don't just have these thick long paragraphs, use bullet points, make it easy to read, use the quantifiable achievements, make sure your skills section is optimized. There's a section on everyone's profile and LinkedIn continues to change the number of skills you can have I think the latest I write was 60, but use all 60 skills optimize that part of your profile I think that's really important. And then the other thing I would say is start being active on LinkedIn, you know, not everyone posts not everyone is comfortable posting. And that's okay I get it not ever that's not everyone's what they really want to do but find people that you are interested in following.

Follow their content and when you see someone post something comment on those posts. You know I'm often asked how I was able to grow my LinkedIn following. I was going to ask you that. Yeah, so I think it's a combination of two things it's I post five, six times a day, but I also comment on other people's posts so what happens is when you comment on a post. Not only does your name go on that but the first thing you have under your name on your profile follows you to if you make a post and I comment on it. Everyone is going to be able to see my comments.

But it doesn't just say Melissa grabbing or what it says is global TA and HR leader, and then to LinkedIn creator so on and so forth. And LinkedIn was really smart to set it up that way because that's how you can learn about people through through commenting. So I think again it's being active on the platform and it takes time to build an audience I want to say that too so you know a lot of people reach out to me and they say how did you grow your audience 360,000 followers and I'm like it doesn't happen overnight.

It took me time. I spend a lot of time every day on LinkedIn, and you have to be committed to the platform it does not happen overnight and you have to be patient. If you're going to have some days where you're going to gain a hundred followers you might have another day I think one day I gained like $700 in a day. It just really depends on what you post you want to post things that are insightful that are interesting you want to start a conversation so I post a lot about job search tips tools and motivation but through my post I'm inviting people to comment.

So a lot of times I'll say like what do you think or I'd like to hear your thoughts and then it invites a dialogue and that's how your name kind of gets out there on LinkedIn. But again the key is that it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time to build an audience. The other thing I'll say the last thing I'll say about this is that, and I see a lot of creators make this mistake is that when when I post something on LinkedIn, I generally reply to 90% of the comments that people make on my post. I see a lot of creators what they do is they post something and then there might be 500, so they don't comment on those comments.

I feel very strongly that if someone takes the time to write a comment on something I post that they deserve a response for me and it's time consuming but I feel really strongly that I owe it to my followers because if they take the time to comment then I should take the time to respond to that. So I think all those things collectively is really how you grow your following, having patience, but yeah for people that are searching for a job, be active on LinkedIn, follow companies that you're interested in. If you apply to a position at a company, try to find out who the recruiter is, you can do a search on the toolbar, you put the name of the company, recruiter or talent acquisition said to know directly to those people who you think are the decision makers. That's how you stand out, especially when you're looking for a job.

Well, so I guess the first thing I say is I used to think I was somebody that had an optimized LinkedIn profile but after hearing your, you know, very thorough, go through on what and actually optimize LinkedIn profile looks like I now know that I have a lot of work to do. So I appreciate that. And I'm actually pretty sure most of our listeners here will probably like I'll just say this, the idea to use your banner actually has not like I have my school's picture there.

Like, you're right. What value is that adding to my profile and especially it's the first thing that you see it's a lot of space. There's no way to hide it. It's there. So why don't you do the best job that you possibly can and actually use it in a way that benefits you. So that's the first thing I'm going to do. Yeah, so yeah, I mean I'm honestly kind of blown away by how amazing that was. On the topic of LinkedIn, do you have any tips and tricks that you share with job seekers around reputable and or asking for. So I guess what I'm getting at is there's like, obviously there's two types of networking like so first is obviously the warm networking where you're just as you said, organically reacting to people's or commenting to people's posts, kind of following them adding value to their, you know, LinkedIn presence as and when you can.

And the other is the more cold approach system where you, this is a stranger, you just send them a personalized note, and you say, hey, I need a job. Can you help me. So, and I'm sure there's somewhere in between there. But I'm curious to get your take on what you think is the right way to go about it, especially from the perspective of being somebody of being a job seeker that wants to reach out to maybe a hiring manager or a recruiter.

Those are different things, but I'm just looking for networking or referral asking tips from the perspective of job seekers. Yeah, I think a couple things so, I think a lot of people don't get right about networking is that networking is a really cool thing and it's a really powerful thing but a lot of people would they get wrong about networking is that it's not only what someone can do for you, but you can do for somebody else. So, you know, a lot of times, you know, people reach out to me and they're like, oh, I see you're introduced, or you're connected to so and so on, LinkedIn, can you introduce me.

And then the most, I think the best networkers are the ones that then say, is there anything I can do for you? Is there anyone in my network that I could introduce you to. So, it's not a give, it's on a take, take, take relationship. It's a give and take and take. So I think that's a really important distinction with networking and a lot of people under don't understand is that. I think most people generally want to help other people, but you, you want to, you want to help, you want to make sure those people understand like you want to help them to and if you're going to do me a favor like what can I do to help you.

I think that's, that's really, really important. And I think what a lot of people don't get right about networking. And I'm sorry, what was your other question. Yeah, it was about to say I'm a job seeker. I saw I went on the job board. There was a job posted there. I applied to that. Now I want to reach out to the person that posted the job to follow up or to be like, I'm really interested in this. Yeah. Is there any other thing that I can do? But how does one, you know, get their foot in the door in terms of that scary personalized invite slash send message option.

Yeah, I think that it's, you know, like when I was reaching out to the CEO of my company, I remember my message being very short and sweet. It said, you know, Hi, Christine, my name is Melissa Grabner. And I did some research on your company and I'm really interested and here's why. And I think I listed like three or four bullet points in terms I would be a fit for the organization. Now, when I did this, there wasn't a job posting. I had no idea if it was even hiring and it turned out they were. And it was, it was great and it worked in my favor.

But I would say to people that are reaching out to someone I linked in after I see a job posting, it's taking a look at the job description, taking a look at the top of the job description. Usually JD's have the most important bullet points listed first and then kind of on their way down. Take a look at those top bullets and say write a message that describes how you would be able, how you have the experience of what the job is in tailings.

I see you're looking for, you know, a recruiter that does heavy booleen searching or has gone to networking events and then you write a couple bullets of your experience in those areas. So I want to make it appear as if you're really good fit for the job and then I would always say attach a copy of your resume. Make it easy for the recruiter, you know, don't make them like try to like learn more about your background, have your resume there as part of the message.

And then you can say, I really appreciate you taking a look at my resume. I'm really, and then it's pressure enthusiasm. You know, I think this is a great fit. And I really feel like I can hit the ground running and you want to make it seem like it would be really, really great for them to bring you on board. So you want to, again, express your genuine enthusiasm and how you can hit the ground running and how you feel like you're really passionate about doing these responsibilities based on your current or prior experience. And then the other thing I would say to people is always follow up. Right. So not everyone is really active on LinkedIn.

You might reach out to people and you're never going to hear back either because they don't want to write you back or they just don't see your message. If you reach out to someone on LinkedIn, I would say give it like three or four days. And if you don't hear back, follow up with them. You know, I love when candidates reach out to me. It shows me they're professional. It shows me they're proactive and it makes my job easier because these are candidates that are right in front of me.

I don't have to go through the tracking system. We, you know, we grew, you know, 150 people that applied. And there are many people that I've hired because of their pro acts because they took the time to figure out who I was, said me a personalized message. And I think that's awesome, especially, you know, if you're going to take the time to do that and you're going to differentiate yourself over somebody else. I'm going to, I'm going to read your resume and I, and I'm going to get back to you and it worked for me. I mean, it could take a while.

Absolutely. And I know, not even just personally, but speaking with my peers and such, there's always that hesitance where you're like, I don't know that feels like I'm, you know, being intrusive or maybe I should. It's like the equivalent of double texting as the kid say, but it's very different than that because, you know, you're being professional, you're being respectful and obviously there's a way to do it. That's correct. And which is not intrusive. So that's what I've personally always felt, but it's really good to have that validated by somebody, you know, that's actually been there done that. So really appreciate that.

Sorry, go ahead. The only thing I'll say about this is that, and I might have mentioned, you alluded to this earlier, is that, you know, this is what I would call an employer driven market right now there are more people looking for work and more people buying for a position than than there are positions available. A couple of years ago, it was a candidate driven market where companies were buying enough people to hire every couple of years of pendulum changes. Hopefully, again, it will be, you know, soon be a candidate driven market.

But in today's very dynamic and competitive job landscape, people have to do things to differentiate themselves over other people. There's just no, there's just no way around it. Especially if you don't know someone that works company you're not an employee referral. You have to do things to stick out. And again, I love when Canada's reached out to me. Yeah, I love it. It makes my job easier and it shows me they're proactive and I think it's great.

You know, earlier and throughout this conversation, really, whenever you reference the work that you do actively with your business with helping job seekers. I'm actually really curious as to, you know, it's like when you do something enough times you start to notice patterns you start to notice that various people from various backgrounds kind of going through the same rigmarole where they're like, they're falling trap to the same pitfalls essentially. So I guess what I'm getting at is when somebody say is interested in, you know, getting your expertise or, you know, wanting to get your perspective on something from that POV. What are some things that you've noticed that are patterns where a lot of people fall prey to, but that are pretty easily avoided.

So these can be in terms of not necessarily just resumes, but maybe the job search strategy. Really, I'm just looking for if you've seen maybe, you know, 10 or so people all having the same issue that obviously then you were able to solve because obviously you're an expert. So does that even happen because I do realize I'm making an assumption here. Yeah, I mean, there are so many people that, and I think this is more the norm versus the exception.

There are so many people that sit on their computer all day, and they refresh their browser every couple hours and they look for any new job postings and what they do is they apply to those jobs. They don't reach out and network for people. They don't reach decision makers of the company. And I feel like, you know, that's just not the way to find a job. Only 7% of job seekers actually find a job through a job posting.

Most of the people that I know find a job through their network. It's, it's a proven statistic. There's no question about it. Networking is the most effective way to find a job. And when I coach job seekers, you know, I'll say to them, like, what has been your job search strategy? And so many of them say, yeah, I've been looking for a job for six months and I'm not getting any bites. And I'll say, so what have you been doing to search for a job? Oh, yeah. Well, I look on job boards all day and I just apply to, you know, what's out there.

And I say to them, that's why you're not getting any bites because that's not an effective way to look for a job and you have a ton of competition because there's everyone else is doing the same thing. If you have to find ways to differentiate yourself and you have like these amazing platforms like LinkedIn, where you could basically find any recruiter. You know, you go to the search bar, you type in the company name and the word recruiter, or you go to the company page, you type, you know, you click on the word people and all the, all the people will appear.

And then from there, you can drill it down even further by typing in your order. Those are the people that are going to get the interviews. It's, it's like, if something is broken, you need to fix it. And when you're searching for a job and it's been six months and you're not getting any bites and you're sending out hundreds of resumes and you're not hearing anything, something's not working. So it's time to reevaluate what you're doing, try to fix it. And the first thing is definitely you've got to have an optimized resume. You've got to have an optimized profile.

And I think once you have those things, then I'd say go full force into your job search. But I would say to anyone that's like newly laid off. Those are the two things you've got to do right away. You've got to get your resume together. You have to have quantifiable achievements. It has to be optimized. That's a, that's a time to boast about yourself. That's true. You're able to, without any apology, talk about your achievements. Talk about the great things you've done, because you want to give employers a reason to want to get there.

You know, when I see a resume and it says, Oh, I saved, you know, $20 million a year, or I increased hiring manager satisfaction by 15%, I want to learn more. Like, tell me how you get that. Like, that's really cool. Versus, yeah, well, I feel 20 positions a year. Well, okay, what were those positions and how long did you fill them and where your candidates satisfied? Like, you need to expand on what you've done and make it quantifiable.

That's, I can't stress enough to people how important that is. And really use your resumes and place to shine, pat yourself on the back, optimize that profile, get that banner personalized, use all the real estate under your name. Don't just list your job title and your company. Anyone can find that information if they go further down in your profile, and network network network, you know, spend a couple hours a day on LinkedIn, apply or reply to people's comments.

If you're comfortable post something yourself, it doesn't have to be like this crazy, like, just, just post something and that's how you start getting traction. It's like, just dip your toe in the water, skirt, small, and then you can dive into the ocean. Isn't that, you know, that answers my question absolutely perfectly. Do you also see any such patterns on interviewing as well, where, you know, those are maybe things that are easily correct, low hanging fruit, but people would just be better if they knew that that is a pitfall. Any experience around that at all that you've seen.

Yeah, I think there's two things about interviews that are really important. The first is, is that candidates need to realize that interviewing is a two way street. It's not just a company interviewing you. You are interviewing the company as well. Just as a company has a right to say I'm not interested in this candidate, a candidate has the right to say I'm not interested in this company. So I would say when you go to an interview, ask questions, ask everyone you interview at least three to five questions about the culture about what's the typical day like it in this role.

What other departments will this person be working with? How is success measured? What are the deliverables for the first, you know, home with questions, it shows your interest and shows your methodical strategic and thoughtful. When I interview candidates and they don't have questions for me, that to me is a big red flag. Yeah, the reason why I like questions is because it shows you do your homework. Go to an interview, understanding what the company does, who its competitors are, any recent news stories, all of this can be found on a LinkedIn page.

It can be found on the company website, but do your homework on the company, understand what the company does. I can't tell you how many times I've interviewed candidates and I would say so what do you know about our company and they would be like, I'm not really sure well that's not. No, that's just that happens all the time. Really, that's honestly that's shocking to me. I tell you it happens all the time people don't know they're not prepared.

You talk through their accomplishments and you have to be confident in an interview. You have to come across confident in the sense that a company would be really long diary. And again, job seekers, you always have the power to walk away. If something doesn't feel right, you know, it happened to me a couple years ago, I was called by a company to interview for a vice president of talent acquisition position. And as part of the interview process, the company wanted me to create a very detailed presentation, basically mapping out with the entire functional budget, processes, headcount. That feels like a lot of work to me.

Right. So I said to the recruiter, I said, okay, how much are you going to pay me for my time and my expertise. And the recruiter said, well, we're not going to pay you. This is part of our interview. And I said, well, I'm not interested. Because I'm hearing all the time of what companies are doing is that they're taking the work that candidates are doing, and they're using it to their advantage. I've heard of people that are in marketing that have created these like incredible marketing plans, and all of a sudden it's on the company's website.

So what I would say is that no job seeker should be taken advantage of. If a company is going to require you to do work, then are they going to pay for that? Are you going to have rights to that? They can't go ahead and turn around and use what you create for their advantage. And this is happening all the time. And when I walked away from that particular opportunity, I had no regrets. I said, I'm not going to spend hours and hours.

Creating something for them to be like, sorry, we're not interested and then turn around and have the company use it to their advantage that happening all the time. And I disagree with that approach and companies just have to be very careful. I always feel like there needs to be a certain amount of, you know, self respect and the ability to back one's oneself. That's honestly, everybody should strive for so I had never thought about it like that.

But I think what you're saying makes absolute sense. Like, yeah, why would I be doing this? All of this work that is very easily being probably being going to be used. And I will like, you know, there's no binding agreement. I don't get any value out of that. I'm just suddenly, you know, I've wasted all of that time that I could have utilized better. That's very interesting and also very insightful in that I had no idea that that was the thing that was happening. So I really appreciate you sharing that.

Yeah, no, I mean, I said, I'm, I'm not going to do this because I knew if I wanted it done right, it would take me a lot of time. And, yeah, listen, I have a lot of experience and I can put together a great telling acquisition strategy, but you got to pay me for it. Absolutely. And they said, no, I said, okay, I'm not interested. I mean, yeah, it's probably best that you, you know, split ways at that point. Yeah, hopefully they turned out to be as fine, you know, as you did in terms of career progressions.

But Melissa, it's been such an absolute delight to, you know, sit down here and learn from you. Absolutely change my entire perspective on how this entire world works and operates that honestly I thought I had figured out I won't lie. But, you know, after this whole discussion, I generally already have like eight different action items in my mind right now to go and do starting with that banner that banner is changing tonight.

You best, you best believe it. The banner are telling you people needs to personalize their manner. There's so many fun things you can do with your banner. You can use. And thank you so so much, Melissa. I really appreciate it. Okay. Bye. That brings us to the end of episode 25 of the ready set to podcast. Thank you all for continuing to share these. Thank you all for sharing these episodes with those that continue to benefit from them. If you would like to support me. The easiest way to do that is by subscribing to the YouTube channel and or leaving me up to a five star rating on Spotify.

If you would like to reach out, please comment on the YouTube video. I read every comment and it literally makes my day catch you all in the next one new episodes every once.