In this podcast we review the Google-recommended functional resume format and talk about the ins and outs.

Resources:

• Google webinar about practical resume strategies
• Make a copy of this google docs functional resume
• Standard resume template
• Video Resume tips

Once again, another episode of careers and coffee. How are you

Liz?

Great. How are you doing?

I'm doing good, doing good. Well, we are in November of

2022. Lots of interesting things happening in the world and our

last careers and coffee was actually about the economy. And

what's happening around the world, you can check that out on

our channel, if you'd like to. But today, we're going to go

back to the basics a little bit, which we like to do here on

cruising coffee, and give you some tips and just things to

think about when you're building your resume. So Liz, I know you

attended a webinar recently. And could you tell us a little more

about that?

Yeah, so I listened in on a Google Grow with Google webinar

that was all about optimizing your resume with practical

strategies. And they had so many great tips in there, I highly

recommend this webinar, and we'll link to it in the show

notes. So you can watch it yourself. It's only about it's

an hour long. But there's you don't have to watch the entire

thing. It was definitely relevant to any job seeker. So

whether you're applying for a professional position or another

or warehouse position, any anybody that you're going to

have to put together a resume, this is a great tool for you. So

one of the things that was new to me and of listening to this

webinar was talking about what what do I do when I have a gap

in my employment? How do I explain that in a resume? This

is a common question we get from job seekers. And previously, you

know, maybe we'd advise, like, well make the most of your

volunteer experience and whatever skills that you've

built. And those are, that's still good advice. And that was

some of the advice that they had in this in this webinar. But

they proposed that, I'm just going to open up my screen here

of the notes from here. It's really important when you're

optimizing your resume that you choose a professional format. So

you make sure that the format of your resume is something that is

going to look professional to a HR hiring manager, or even just

a manager that was going to review your resume. So that

professional format is a place to start. The second thing that

you're going to want to do is highlight your skills and

accomplishments. What's what's unique to you, what have you

accomplished so far. And then citing a specific examples, and

measurable details is really key because and as as quickly as

possible, too, because people are scanning these resumes. And

you want to show you know whether it's improved sales

numbers by 25%. And my time there, whatever it is, it's got

to be something that is specific and measurable that you can

claim in your resume with, you know, that's accurate. And then

you're gonna tailor your resume to the job description. And

we've talked about this before with keyword optimization. It's

just a, it's just a tip that you're going to want to have

some of the exact verbiage that's in a job. What do you

call that a job posting? Yeah, and the job description of what

they're looking for, make sure you use some of those keywords

in your in your resume. That is the that is the last step

though. The first step is that professional format. So bringing

it back to well, what do you do when you've got a gap in

employment, they have a template in Google Docs, anyone can use

this.

So this functional resume template really puts your skills

first. So if you're, you know, you haven't seen him work for

seven years, because you've been taking care of kids or older

family member or something like that something has gotten away

of your work? Well, it's something that is a different

kind of work that's not outside of the home, you're going to

make the most of what skills that you've gained through that

time period. And so it could be, you know, were you Vice

President of the debate society in college and whether that's an

interesting example there, but it could be organizational

skills, account management, let's say you paid all the bills

in your household or something like that. That's, you know,

organization that is something that's going to be important.

Maybe it's a communication skill, you know, that you're a

good communicator or friendly. We've talked about those those

counting skills. Those soft skills are super important to

employers, especially in this day and age where it's really

they can teach you the things that you need to learn on the

job but the Soft skills are kind of hard to teach. So any soft

skills I think you should put in there, and you just put your

your first and last name, your contact info, that's the most

important part of a resume in the first place. And then you

were my education that you've gotten it. Maybe you didn't

finish a degree, that's okay. You just you just put that you

have some experience, you know, maybe you took took a year at

Kirkwood, or you at a year at Iowa or something like that,

just put that in there. And that you graduated high school, if

you had a high school diploma, and then any experience, you

want to include your most current position first. If it's

been a time, it's been quite a time since you've been there.

Just keep it to the year and month that you started and

stopped what your title was. And then going back to that

optimization, like, what did you accomplish there? What's

Specific, measurable things? Did you accomplish there? But it's

really starting with the skills first. And then your experience,

which is different from our traditional resume that shows

your experience first, and then your skills maybe on the side?

Yeah, I like this. I have a question. If so, let's say, you

know, it has been a while since I've been in the workforce. And

I'm sitting down working on this functional resume template. I'm

just drawing a blank as to exactly what my skills are. I'm

sorry, I just can't think of, you know, like, what am I good

at naturally? Like, what? What skills can I bring to the table?

How would you suggest somebody go about finding out? What am I

most good at?

So we've talked about this before, we have like quizzes,

right like that, we could, you could do an online quiz that

kind of helps you identify those things, but I kind of using

another person, you know, and this is where, you know, calling

on your resources when you're job searching is really

important. So it should be a friend or a family member that

that thinks highly of you. You know, you don't want some

naysayer to be part of this process, you want someone who is

positive, and that is forward thinking and, you know, kind of

has a nice view of you to be helping you with this process.

Because they're going to help you, you're always gonna be

harder on yourself than someone else. And so they're going to

help you identify, like, you're amazing at this, why don't you

put that on there, and you would not have done that. Because you

don't really notice that about yourself as being a skill, you

know, like, being able to balance the books every month,

and making sure the bills are paid, that's a great skill,

that's really important. Or, you know, managing, you know,

showing up on time to pick people up when they need to be

picked up, that is a great skill, you know, like being

prompt, being accountable. Things like that. So yeah, an

outside person. Okay, if you don't have anyone in your life,

that is a positive force. Um, you know, I'm going to recommend

that you try to use some of the resources we recommend in the

past, whether it be the Kirkwood Career Center, or the

Opportunity Center at the Library. IowaWorks as well as a

resource to typically if you're gonna go to Iowa works, you may

want to make an appointment with someone say, hey, I need help

with my resume versus just walking in. Or if you do walk

in, say, that's why I'm here, I need help with my resume.

Because that's going to clue them that that you're going to

need assistance with the process. That you're not just

ready to fill out an application right there.

Sure, yeah. I absolutely love what you said there. Makes a lot

of sense. And I've kind of vetted friends for that same

exact thing, like, and sometimes I mean, you sit down and you get

to know somebody. And you can usually tell pretty quick like,

wow, that person is really good at maybe connecting different

people, right? Like they know a lot of people there. They are

really good connector, or you can tell this person is really

good at you know, maybe problem solving or finding opportunities

or, or like you said, like managing managing the books and

keeping things organized. So I think that's a great, great tip

for somebody that's been out of the workforce and just like,

wow, I really can't think of what I bring to the table. So

yeah, talking about friends. One other thing, I mean, but I

wanted to add here and this would be more of like a way to

differentiate yourself. When you're applying to a job and

maybe you've been out of the workforce for a while maybe

maybe you have it maybe you're looking for a way but I recently

just looked up like trends in applying to jobs or job

searching and 2022 and The idea of a video resume came up in a

search. And I know, when I first asked you about this, you were

like, video resume. Yeah. So I first heard of video resume

probably 10 plus years ago, and at that point, it was, nobody

had ever really been doing it. But the basic premise of it is

to create a short elevator pitch about yourself. So this could be

including things like your skill set, like what you bring to the

table, what your education is, what, what you've done in the

past, why wouldn't be a good fit. And using those keywords

that are found in the job description, to, you know,

create a short video that you could, you know, just keep

private on your YouTube channel, or whatever, and send off to a

hiring manager. So this might be in addition to, okay, after

you've already applied to a job through, you know, an ATS system

or online. But you have contact info for the hiring manager, you

can follow up and just say, hey, wanted to follow up on my resume

I submitted. Also, I created a short video about myself and my

work history. Let me know if you have any feedback for me, that

type of thing. So I really think that's one way you could

differentiate yourself. The video, I don't believe has to be

like professional, the, you know, like super snazzy or

anything. I just think it's more about the effort level that

you're willing to put in and differentiating yourself from

everybody else that might just be applying online.

Are there certain positions, you think that would be better

suited to a tactic like that?

Gosh, that's a great question. I would think any type of position

that you are dealing with people, marketing, so maybe it's

communications, maybe it's marketing, I'm thinking more

along the lines of if you are, say, a developer or an

accountant, maybe it's not so important, if you work alone, a

lot like I'm doing, you know, just thinking broadly off the

top of my head here. But if you're working in a position

where it's going to be important for you to be communicating

internally, with with people or externally like in a sales role.

One of those things that's going to be super important is your

soft skills, and how you present yourself. So yeah, I could see

for any of those type of roles as being a really good addition

to your resume.

I mean, you might already be recording yourself on Tik Tok,

right. Like,

Right

Just another reminder, your treat your social, like it's

public, especially when you're job searching, because people

will look you up. So we have a whole another blog post about

that. But yeah, I mean, I would imagine that's going to become

more and more common. I think the interesting thing will be is

how does HR deal with that, you know, like to introducing bias

or things like that. I'm just curious about those things.

Because that was one thing that came up when I was like video

interviews. It's like, how would you? How do you keep like an

automated system from in incorporating bias into the

hiring process when there is a video component or something

like that, but it can be part of a process like I'm sure if

you're applying to Google, you know, to work at Google, there

would probably be a video resume part of the application process

built into their system? I don't know, I've heard about those

things happening at these larger corporations.

Yeah, I mean, you bring up a really good point there. What,

what kind of cognitive bias? What would happen during if

you're doing a video, but I guess I wouldn't be too

concerned with that on the front end. Yeah. It's really not your

problem. Your your, your problem is, I want to go find a new job,

or I want to get back into work. Yes. Right.

Well, you could probably attach it to your LinkedIn right, like

so just be like a video that would just enhance like your bio

on your LinkedIn, I can totally see that being something that

you'd want to share with a potential hiring manager.

Sure. I like that idea too. Cool. Well, good stuff. Yeah.

Anything else to add?

I would just say that Google has an incredible free webinar

series all about the job search process. We will link to that in

the show notes. We'll also link that to our career resources.

But I highly recommend these. Their tips are very sound, and I

think applicable to any type of job search process, and they

really just cover the basics that you need to know. Recently,

I was sitting down with a family member who was applying for jobs

and just re inserting myself into the job application process

with them. And just realizing how many steps there are to this

process and why job seekers hate it so much. Because it is really

not fun to do this stuff. But once you get a professional base

resume that you can kind of adjust over time to depending on

what job it is that you're applying for. You're really in a

much better state than without it. So I highly recommend it as

part of your job search process.

Great. That sounds good. All right. Thanks, Liz. We'll see