Not sure what skills you should showcase in your resume? Wondering what will help you stand out to a recruiter? Sometimes they tell you exactly what they are looking for and it's your job to mirror their language. Dan and Liz also discuss basic zoom interview tips to help you gear up for landing that career you love in the coming months.

All right. Good morning, Liz.

Good morning.

How's it going today?

Good. How are you?

Not too bad. I got some tea going. I had a

couple cups of coffee this morning. But on the tea now

I've switched to decaf. But so rockin the coffee.

So.

Okay, right on. There we go. So we are at July

15. Now part of believe summer is kind of like halfway over?

No, it's going by really fast. I mean, I know for you with with

three kids are, you know, they're probably not ready to go

back to school yet. But you know, we're moving in that

You know, they saw the back to school flyers from

direction.

Target and they're like, no. So if you have you have kids, and

you're thinking about that back to school. I mean, pair that

back to school with back to a job. If you if you're looking at

securing work for the fall after things settle down. Your kids

are back in school, now's the time to be really starting your

job search, because it's gonna take you a while. I mean, it

just is. Even though it's a job seekers market right now. It can

take a little while to find the right fit for you. So it's a

good time to dip the toe in.

Yeah, absolutely. And let's talk a

little bit about what's going on in our local job market here. I

mean, we have 400, I think it's 434 jobs on Corridor Careers

right now. So there's a plethora of jobs out there. Tons of

employers looking to hire, it is a job seekers market. And I've

noticed a couple other things going on, throughout this whole,

you know, stay at work from home pandemic thing. And I've

actually had a couple friends that were working locally. And

they have now transitioned and started working for companies

100% remotely, but the companies are based in other other states.

So I think we what I'm seeing is we have a very talented

workforce here in Eastern Iowa, people, employers from other

areas are recognizing that. And sure enough, like they're,

they're dipping in and you know, I don't want to say stealing,

but they're, they're finding opportunity in our market, which

is creating even even more job opportunities for local

candidates.

Right, because those jobs still exist that your

friends were working at right here in the market. So if you

are tired of working from home, and want to get back into a, you

know, some kind of semblance of a normal, where you're, you

know, you're visiting a workplace every at least every

once in a while, you know, you're gonna want to work

locally, somewhere.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, well,

let's, we're gonna do something kind of unique here. We're going

to talk about transferable skills are just, we're gonna,

we're gonna take a look at a job that's on quarter careers right

now. And we're gonna just kind of go over the bullet points of

it and talk about what are some of the skills that might be

needed for for a job for this job. So given that job was with

that,

so we're going to talk about our friends at

Medirevv here, Medirevv is a local company in Coralville. And

they are a longtime partner of quarter careers, posting their

jobs attending our career fairs, usually, and, and so this

administrative coordinator, I just thought was a good example

of, you know, help help you understand, okay, why are skills

in a resume important? And I just know this, because I

recently hired someone and reviewing the skills that

usually are at the top of a resume. You know, like after

you've given your kind of spiel of who you are and what your

objective is, sometimes there'll be like a skill summary at the

top, that is extremely useful to a hiring manager, who is poring

through various resumes trying to determine like, Who should I

interview? And so, you know, you might think to yourself, Well,

what do I put in there? I mean, I have lots of skills, but what

are ones that are relevant to an employer, and the employer will

tell you what skills are relevant to them. So you can

generally just read through the job description and try to

highlight things that would pop out like as a keyword. So for

instance, this this role of an administrative coordinator,

they're looking for someone who has experience with setting

appointments. So calendar appoint, setting appointments is

a skill that you could put as a skill in your skill summary.

They're also looking for someone who is good on the phone, you

know, has good communication skills. So would highlight those

patient nation skills Yeah, like they've mentioned before. Like

many, many times in this, so that should clue you like, okay,

coordination is really important. Obviously, it's in

the job title, but I should include that as a keyword in my

skills, maybe, because it'll help you stand out. And then

they even have like a knowledge skills and abilities section

with some, some job descriptions do not have, they just don't

have this. But these guys do. And so you can see here they're

looking for experience. So you'll want to make sure that if

you have work history that includes two to three years of

prior experience, that you're kind of bringing that to the top

of your resume, you know, your job history doesn't necessarily

have to be chronological, it, it's helpful sometimes if it is

especially like, what are you currently doing. But if what

you're currently doing is not relevant to the job that you're

seeking, it's okay for you to kind of highlight the jobs that

are so that you can show that you have the experience that

they're looking for. And then they specifically call out

Microsoft Office Suite products. So I would just mirror their,

their, their wording on this, you could say Microsoft Excel as

a skill or Microsoft Office or office 365 as a skill set,

they're going to recognize that that is what they're talking

about. And then interpersonal skills and communication skills.

Pleasant phone manner is a good one that I've seen, like, that's

I always see that that kind of strikes me like, okay, they're

aware of how they are on the phone. And they're they're

promising that they they have a good phone manner. And so those

are key things that you might want to include in that skill

section just for this type of job.

Yeah, absolutely. And I saw a lot of

attention to detail, obviously, you know, being being able to

stay organized, stay on task, be friendly, like you said, wasn't

phone man or all those like things that many rebels looking

for, and that admin coordinator position?

And what employer would be looking for those

skills. I mean, those are just kind of universal skills, right.

And they're sometimes called soft skills and soft skills can

be a little bit confusing to job seekers, I think like, what is a

soft skill? Because there are things that you might not

necessarily recognize about yourself, and think worthy of

putting in a resume. Like, if you're friendly, like, why would

I put friendly in a resume? It's not a skill? Well, it is a

skill, you know, like being pleasant. And having a good

attitude. I've seen that in resumes sometimes, too. And it's

like, oh, cool. They're, they're recognizing that that's an

important thing to know how to do. And they put it in their

resume that makes me feel good as a hiring manager, like, Okay,

well, they state that they have a good attitude. We'll see in

the interview, if they actually do, but at least they are

recognizing that that is something that's important to

employers.

Yeah, I agree. 100% I think it was a just pre

pandemic, actually something in like, early last year, Gary

Vaynerchuk, he did a presentation and he was talking

about the most valuable skills that are needed in the workforce

now. And his number one thing was emotional intelligence as

well as, as basically the same as saying, you have to have a

good personality, right? Like you can't, you can't be Debbie

Downer at the office and expect to get a job like you have to,

you know, be positive, have a good attitude. Right. And, you

know, you, you basically in the in the office are going to get

treated, how you treat other people. You know, if you show up

and have a good attitude at work, and are smiling, you're

probably going to get that same thing back from, from your

fellow co workers and you're going to be in, especially

during the interview process have a better chance of getting

job.

Yeah. And I think, you know, there's always gonna

be bad days, right? You're always gonna have a bad day

occasionally. And that's okay. But especially in the interview

process, that's really your opportunity to showcase your

best. Best, okay? Because you know, the interview, it's stuff

like, as a hiring manager, you always want to give, I always

want to give the other candidate the benefit of the doubt,

especially because I know they're putting themselves out

there. But not every hiring manager has the same attitude

that I have. And really, you're going to be your best if you

just kind of prep yourself up. So let's just say you've got to

have that, like, what do you call it, I'm gonna have that pep

talk beforehand, you know, that locker room, talk with yourself

before you get into the interview. And that interview is

probably going to take place over something like this, right?

Like, it's probably going to be a zoom. So check your

background. You know, make sure you get a clean shirt on. And,

you know, get yourself ready practice. You know, like, if

you're going to do a zoom interview, and you've never done

one before, call your friend on Facebook portal or something

like like or you know, do a do a FaceTime with somebody and just

say, Hey, I just want to practice how I look when I'm on

a screen. And, you know, they can give you some tips and help

you understand, hey, you're always slouching or, you know,

you got some weird thing behind You that you're not even aware

of

those things don't just,

you know, they're just gonna get in your way. And

they have nothing to do with your skills as a person, you

know, as a worker, but they're just those things because we're

not professional job seekers, you know, we forget about.

Yeah, I couldn't even tell, like, looking at you

right now, through our zoom meeting, you know, you're

sitting, you know, upright, and I kind of have my arms folded in

front of me, but as a job seeker, like, if I was like

this, you know, back in my chair, like it just, you know,

there's, there's a different feeling. So, I'm good things to

pay attention to.

Yeah, and we in our check out our YouTube, because

we do, I do link to a couple of playlists for like, zoom

interview tips, you know, things like that. One of the things is,

they recommend getting a sticky note and putting your top points

that you want to get through on your interview, and then

sticking it on the screen. So that you look at that, instead

of like yourself, because like, right now I'm looking at myself,

you know, or, you know, if you, you know, gotta remind yourself,

hey, look at the camera, because that's giving eye contact to the

other person, which is really, you know, it's a kind of an

actor tip, you know, because none of us, I mean, most of us

are not actors and not used to looking at a camera. So, those

things, so there's great resources on YouTube about how

to kind of trick yourself into doing the right thing and a zoom

interview, but I wouldn't get so caught up in that, like, if

you're just a human being, you know, and you like, kind of pay

attention to like, Okay, if I was going to meet with somebody

in person, this is how I would look. This is how I present

myself, you kind of just kind of have that same attitude over

zoom. I think you'd be fine. Yeah.

Absolutely. All right. That was really good Liz.

Lots of lots of little nuggets in there. I really like that.

Any parting words before we sign off for this edition of careers

and coffee?

No, I think I think for the next few editions of

careers and copper, we're just gonna hammer home some of the

basics because, you know, it's just so easy to lose those

basics of like, Oh, yeah, this is how resumes work. Oh, yeah.

This is how an interview tip. This is some interview tips. So

we're trying to cover some of those things in the coming ones.

Get you guys ready to interview You know, to get that job before

fall cause we really want to see you You know, living your best

life by November, right.

There we go. I like it. All right Liz, Thanks a

lot. Until next time.

Peace out. Drink more coffee.