Resume Tips For Job Seekers in the New Normal Hiring Market

Ricky Baez 0:00
Hello, everyone. This is Ricky Baez, Director of people and culture for 4 Corner Resources and you’re listening to Hire Calling podcast.

Pete Newsome 0:35
Welcome, everyone, and thank you for listening to season two of the Hire Calling podcast. I’m Pete Newsome and this is your source for all things hiring, staffing, and recruiting. But with a really big twist. I did season one. It was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So for season two, and hopefully for all seasons going forward, I’m going to be joined by Ricky Baez and we’re going to tag-team to do this together. So, Ricky, you can introduce yourself better than I can. So go ahead and take over.

Ricky Baez 1:04
Well, thank you, Pete, I really appreciate it. People are probably wondering who is that voice at the beginning, not that I’m patting myself on the back that it sounds great. But it’s definitely an unfamiliar voice. My name is Ricky Baez and I am the new director of people and culture for 4 Corner Resources. That’s a really fancy way of saying HR. I consider you know what, Pete, lately? People think HR is boring, right?

Pete Newsome 1:28
So HR generally is boring. Perhaps that’s why, maybe?

Ricky Baez 1:32
Well, yeah, fine, right. It is. But you know what, you got me here to make it un-boring.

Pete Newsome 1:38
Let’s, just say HR doesn’t have to be boring, but too often it is. How’s that?

Ricky Baez 1:43
That? You know what? Agreed 100%. So, yeah, so I’m, again, I’m Ricky Baez. I’ve been in HR for about 20 years and it’s, I’m one of those few people, Pete, that I love what I do. I really do love what I do. You know, if you ask a kid in an elementary school, what they want to do when they grow up, they’ll tell you a teacher, a fighter pilot, an attorney, and a doctor. No kid ever says I want to be an HR pro when I grow up. If you hear kids say that, get them checked. Are you the one? No, I’m not the one. You know what,

Pete Newsome 2:21
I’m dressing up as an HR guy for Halloween. And I want to know what you’re wearing.

Ricky Baez 2:27
Me dressing up as holiday as HR for Halloween is scary for a lot of people. So that’s the time thing to do. No, but I’m not that one kid. It’s later on, I’m lucky enough, Pete, to have a career find me not the other way around a career find me that I really enjoy. So I’m happy to be on, I’m happy to be on board, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this takes us.

Pete Newsome 2:48
We are happy that you found us at 4 Corner Resources and I’m even more personally happy that you’re willing to do this podcast with me which while there are so many great things to say so many wonderful things to talk about important things to talk about. It’s always better to have a partner to do this with. And I’m genuinely excited to be here because the last episode I recorded was speaking of Halloween back in October, which is kind of embarrassing. That was not the intention. But it became the thing that I procrastinated about too frequently and so we’re here to make a clean break and a big improvement going forward, so yeah, huge welcome all around.

Ricky Baez 3:30
Excellent. Excellent.

Ricky Baez 3:31
Thank you. So now that I’ve been around for a few weeks, actually a month, I’m getting to see what we do here. Now, I knew what we did here at 4 Corner Resources, but we obviously we are a staffing organization and at the end of the day, what our job here is, and obviously Pete knows this because he started the company, but everybody else who’s listening is to find the best talent for the right client. But it’s got to be the best fitting talent, not the most qualified one. It’s got to be the one that fits the best with what the client is looking for. So Pete when 2021, I know, you know that everybody else knows that and actually, we’re over the hump of 2021 and a lot of people are out there, still a little bit confused about what you need to do as an employee or a candidate, somebody looking for work need to do to get their foot in the door.

Ricky Baez 3:41
What the ideas or the processes that worked two, three years ago are no longer relevant right now because of how the pandemic has changed the workspace. So, what do you think what we should talk about today, Pete, we should just talk about how to get the foot in the door, how to make sure that you format your documents or your resume for that matter in a way that stands out in a sea of other resumes. Now granted before the pandemic That was still a hard job for a recruiter, a recruiter has 500 resumes, and they gotta pick one to make sure that the client is going to just love. Now it’s just that much more worse. Right?

Pete Newsome 5:10
That’s right. So it does start with the resume and I think it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway that there are so many aspects to you can answer the question of where to start. There’s not just one place, there’s many, but we’re going to try to keep this somewhat concise on topic. So let’s, let’s just talk about resumes today, if that’s okay, and get into other things later, like social media, and how to how to network and how to work with third parties, like 4 Corner Resources, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that. But with resumes, in particular, that is the cover to the book is how I often think of it, and we all know that you shouldn’t judge a book by the cover, but we also know that it’s very common to do exactly that.

Pete Newsome 5:55
You know, if I watched my wife, you know, browsing magazines at the checkout counter, in Publix, she’s looking at the covers and if you think of a resume that way, that will be your really good start, because it really is your first chance to make a first impression, and perhaps your only chance, you know it making any impression at all. So you really need to make it count. And I think it’s one of those areas where everyone has made a resume at some point in the past, but those who aren’t used to changing jobs very often, probably aren’t entirely comfortable doing so, and there’s a lot of advice from a lot of different people, friends, family, neighbors, who you know, I see professional resume writers out in the world. But there are just a few core and really critically important things that if you do, you’ll really set yourself up for success. So I’d like to focus on those areas today.

Ricky Baez 6:53
Awesome, awesome. So resumes. It’s I don’t know how long they’ve been around. But they have been the marketing campaign. For people looking for a job. It is the workforce, oldest commercial, pretty much, right? Because you have to put all your skills, all your abilities, everything you can do on this document that this piece of paper, the how a resume works, obviously has changed throughout the years right now social media is big. The more software’s are out there, the more intuitive they become and the more you have to be aware of how intuitive they are. So you can get past the applicant tracking software. But if we can first get let’s take a step back real quick, let me take you down this row, Pete.

Pete Newsome 7:42
I know you really want to talk about artificial intelligence, I can tell I see it. That’s where you’re going with this, isn’t it?

Ricky Baez 7:50
I’m getting there, I’m getting there. But before we get to artificial intelligence, let’s talk about real intelligence and that is what the candidate has. So, if a candidate is out there right now looking for a job, and looks what happened in April, 4 million people decided to leave the workforce, because they didn’t want to come back into the office. And so that’s 4 million people that are out there competing for these jobs with other organizations. I guess if we take a step back real quick before we start taking a deep dive into resumes, what are some of the things that the candidate can do right now, even before a resume is there to start building that relationship with a potential recruiter?

Pete Newsome 8:32
So you know, I’m gonna bring it, I’m gonna keep us to resume if I can’t, because that is its own episode, right? I don’t want to answer that one, one right now, other than to say, you need to cast a really wide net, if you are listening to this. And you’re beginning your job search, whether it’s something you haven’t done in many years or something you’re doing as a result of the recent changes in the world. Just know that the advice I will give universally is to cast as wide a net as you possibly can. Let everyone know you’re looking. You need the network. It always starts with that. And we’ll talk later at about how to work with third parties, other recruiting firms, how to add a network, you know, some specifics behind that.

Pete Newsome 9:18
But you really want to make everyone aware that you’re on the market and ask for help. It’s a very simple thing to do, but something that many people are hesitant to do. But don’t be afraid to ask for help. In fact, go the opposite direction, ask everyone you can so you can be exposed to as many opportunities as you possibly can be. But then what comes next is typically that resume, you know, send me their resume and you described it very well by saying it’s the world’s oldest advertisement of sorts and when it comes to jobs, and it is it’s an advertisement for you, it’s a chance for you to put your best foot forward and have the viewer of that resume. Make a quick decision on whether they want to proceed.

Pete Newsome 10:03
And I think of it as reading your headlines on a newspaper, we made a reference to a magazine cover, it’s all in the same sphere as someone’s going to take a quick glance and decide whether it warrants a deeper dive. So the first thing I would always say to anyone creating a resume from scratch or updating one after many years is you want to create your headline with your best accolades, your best accomplishments, the thing that you want to be seen for first, and that is always, you know, what you want to put them at the very top of your resume. And in doing so this is equally important.

You want to customize it for the receiver of the resume, whether it’s, you know, it is a someone generically that is let’s say it’s they’re in sales, well, you certainly want that person to not question whether you’re interested in a sales job, or if you have sales experience, you want that to be front and center. If you’re sending it in for a specific job opening. Well, it makes sense to make sure that your resume is tailored for that specific job opening and it’s a mistake that no one needs to make. But we see repeated way too often in our world as recruiters where we see many, many resumes day in day out, but it’s absolutely something to avoid. So I would give that as a first recommendation, always put your best foot forward.

Ricky Baez 11:27
Let’s talk about that piece for a second because as a former recruiter, I used to manage an entire recruiting team, one of the things that we saw is that people do what I call the shotgun approach, okay, they have like five different jobs, and they send the same resume for those five different jobs and think a little bit, I get upset because they don’t get any bites and so you get something that’s really crucial and that’s molding your resume to the job that you’re applying for. Why do you think people have a hard time doing that? Because I’ve seen that I’ve seen people do that. What is the driving factor that that that that people tend to shy away from? And actually tailoring to that specific job?

Pete Newsome 12:09
So it’s a good question. I mean, other than, you know, I don’t want to say it’s, I don’t think anyone does it because they’re lazy. Right, which I think it’s because they just don’t realize it’s an important and necessary thing to do. You mentioned earlier, I think you said, you know, 500 resumes, you know, it could be given to anyone opening. And that’s not an exaggeration. And that’s really important as well, you know, we constantly hear people who are frustrated that they’ve applied to lots of places and they haven’t been selected for any of them.

Pete Newsome 12:39
Well, that’s because they are one of many, many applicants. And so if you just step back and look at it, objectively, try to answer the question is, what is going to allow your resume to be picked out of the pile? Assume there’s a pile, right, assume that it’s going to be competitive. All the good jobs are, so why would someone pick out your resume versus another? And then proceed accordingly? With answering that question as you go?

Ricky Baez 13:06
Because it will peep out? I’ll answer that I expect people or recruiters to pick my resume, because I printed my resume on neon colors, and I put perfume over it.

Pete Newsome 13:16
That’s right. Well, while perhaps charming, and somewhat interesting, you know, for you to do. Its recruiters don’t really have time for that. Right? I mean, it’s great. Yeah, when we probably should, should clarify when we say you make that commercial for yourself, right. It’s in the professional sense, always. I mean, it’s great that you like walking dogs, you know, it’s great that you know, like you’re a circus clown on the weekend. Those are, it’s wonderful that everyone has hobbies, but you back to this getting one shot, you don’t want to distract the reader from anything, but what’s most relevant and important for that particular role.

Pete Newsome 13:58
So, you know, if there’s a chance, there’s always an opportunity, you know, and it’s a risky one to put your own flair to it. I don’t know why that word comes to mind. But that’s kind of how it sounds to me, and we do see, you know, crazy colors, but in almost every case, you consider that the resume is going to be viewed online, right? So those things, you know, aren’t really going to stand out. And if they are, it’s probably not going to be in a good way. And so, you know, proceed with caution if you choose to do anything like that there are calculated risks and but that’s probably not what I would recommend.

Ricky Baez 14:36
Now, it’s 100% understood. So you know, what, what about the age-old question Pete, cover letter or no cover letter?

Pete Newsome 14:45
So that always comes up and you’ll know we have written a number of blogs on 4CornerResources.com about resumes and I am not looking at them right now. But I can also always almost guarantee that I’ve probably included it in the blog. I’ve written that we recommend that. So if it’s a choice between more or less, doing something that others would not do, I would say do it. I’d also say write a handwritten note, without exception every single time, it makes a difference, right? It’s a subtle thing. It’s not a silly or goofy thing. It’s professional in nature. But it does make a difference. And similarly with cover letters, but here’s the hard reality, in almost every case, are not really going to be read that in.

Pete Newsome 15:30
So if you just consider the book analogy, you have to look at the cover first to decide whether you want to open it and read, you know, the introduction, or read the preface, or even read the summary and the cover. So if you don’t get past the headlines, so to speak, the rest of the content not really going to matter. And it said that’s the reality of a cover letter. I know if I’m being completely transparent, I would say it’s probably your time and energy is probably better spent, as a follow-up in with something like a handwritten note with something like a letter. If you don’t receive an initial callback, or any feedback after an application that an initial resume set, I would say then, you know, write the letter, I mean, but I probably need to go back and change what I’ve written in some of our articles to support that.

Ricky Baez 16:23
Well, you know, it, it’s been my experience that it’s, I love cover letters I do, because the reason I love them, Pete is because the resume shows what you can do. Right? That shows your skill set, the cover letter gets personality to that skill set, right? So in my experience, and my advice would be and you correct me if I’m wrong is if you’re going to go the route up of a cover letter, make sure that you give it personality, not too much personality, but just make your skill set come to life.

Ricky Baez 16:53
Because you’re right, a lot of recruiters don’t read a cover letter, they go straight to the resume, even then they spend how much time on a resume six seconds, six to nine seconds taking a look and like okay, and then you have to capture the retention for those six to nine seconds. But what if you write a compelling cover letter that gives the recruiter just enough information to say, I want to know what this guy’s talking about? I want to know what she’s all about. So what about a compelling out-of-the-box skirting on the edge cover letter? Is that something you would be opposed to and not recommend to?

Pete Newsome 17:31
So truth be told, I’m answering from a staffing via third party recruiters perspective where we are screening through, you know, potentially dozens of resumes an hour. And your six-second role certainly applies. So, if from if you’re an HR professional, you may be looking for those things that in a perfect world, we’d have time to address. And, you know, I’m torn about that. Because, you know, that’s contradictory to me, right? How do you reconcile, knowing that you’re only gonna get six seconds? I’m saying things like headlines and you know, book covers? And how do you reconcile the cover letter in that? Because it doesn’t really fit into that scenario?

Ricky Baez 18:20
Yeah I mean, I get it, right, because that is the cover of the book. And that’s tough these days, right? Because it’s I don’t know if you can upload a cover letter to the point where the ATS system would pick it up in the same manner that a resume would. But this kind of brings me into my next question, which would be, you know, as far as the different types of resumes that you’re supposed to have, in my experience, I’ve seen a lot of people who try what I like to say, a pretty resume with pictures and all these things.

Ricky Baez 18:57
And it’s really hard for that to filter through an applicant tracking system. So the advice I’ve given people Pete is to have two resumes, an ugly one, and a pretty one, the ugly resume has all the information that you want to come out of the applicant tracking system that we have comes for whatever keyword that the recruiter puts in. And then when you go into the interview, you don’t bring that resume now you bring the beautiful resume with all the different designs don’t put perfume on it, don’t print it on weird paper just enough. So it could stand out from any kind of a pile after all the interviews are done. Have you heard of something like that? Yeah.

Pete Newsome 19:38
I haven’t actually thought of it that way. But I think you just answered the question, you know, intentionally or not, that’s, that’s the right combination. Where, you know, get, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily think of it as an ugly resume either, but fine, we’ll go with that. But, you know, there are many reasons to do that. And you mentioned the applicant tracking system. So what happens when an application is sent to either a corporate entity or a recruiting firm like ours, it’s uploaded into an applicant tracking system or what we refer to as an ATS and if there’s too much goofy formatting, it’s not going to load correctly, it’s going to be very difficult for that, to go in the system and be found and searchable.

Pete Newsome 20:22
So that’s a great point. So don’t get cute with your formatting. Don’t use tables in word, they never come across well. If you stick with just really plain text in your we’ll call it an ugly resume that is sent digitally. How’s that? can we call it a digital resume for like a copy? I like to know that we’ll write our own terms for it. Because it’s not something we’ve, we’ve I’ve thought of. And the reason is because we almost exclusively work with digital resumes, through what we do. However, we tell every candidate it makes sure that before they go to an in-person interview, they do bring a hard copy. And that’s the perfect opportunity. And I wouldn’t say pictures. Right? And you know, perfume is optional, I guess. But I’m joking with that, by the way. What’s up? I’m joking with that. By the way. I have seen that before, though, that I have a scented paper, right? I mean, yeah, you know, maybe subtly. But that would be the time to if you feel compelled to have it be a little more fancy, then do it then. But definitely keep it basic with the digital.

Ricky Baez 21:28
Got it. So we’ve talked about so far how to market and we talked about how to put those things together. As far as he gets that recruiters attention. Let’s talk about what the recruiter is looking for. So the recruiter or the hiring authority, actually, they both partner together to figure out who is the perfect candidate for this role. Hiring authority gives the recruiter all the things to look for. But one of the things recruiters look for is career progression. And if they don’t see it on a resume, that regardless of what kind of skill set you have, if they don’t see career progression out there, how would that affect your chances as a candidate to get selected for that role if you don’t clearly show how you’ve progressed in your career.

Pete Newsome 22:11
So you can’t make up something that doesn’t exist? Or you shouldn’t. There are certain, you know, college football coaches that at times will make up things on the resume that didn’t exist. But that’s a different story altogether. Apologies to UCF fans, but in terms of what you should put on a resume if you have career progression to show. Absolutely. Is that going to give you an advantage? No question. But if it’s not there, it’s not there. And that’s something that I would certainly a point we should make today is don’t make up things that aren’t true. And we can touch on that in a second. But yeah, you know, of course, you want to show that advancement.

Pete Newsome 22:56
But the main thing that the recruiter would look for, I would say even more importantly, as relevance to the role that’s open and the one that recruiting for, I mean, that is what you know, is so important back to our earlier point of customizing the resume, while you want it to always be an inaccurate representation of who you are and what you’ve done. You also want to highlight the things that are most important at that moment. So, you know, not anyone is only one thing, I’m not sure if that even makes too much sense. But everyone is more than one thing to be the thing that’s most relevant for that role that you are, right, that’s probably the weirdest thing ever to come out of my mouth. But you want to highlight, again, what’s going to give you the best chance, and what’s gonna give you the best chance is relevance for that specific opening.

Ricky Baez 23:47
I agree 1,000%. Pete, something else that I think is going to give you that edge is the difference between a resume that shows what your skill set is and a resume that shows how you use your skill set to move the needle from A to B. So it’s really important for a candidate to really put down on a resume. Yes, your skill set, your knowledge, skills, and abilities KSAs is but to really give it an oomph is how you use examples of how you use those skills to move that needle from A to B, would you agree?

Pete Newsome 24:20
I would, I would for sure. And so yeah, that point I wanted to get back to is just to quickly say you do never ever you know put things that you can’t defend. Don’t put, if t is on your resume. It is fair game. And so alright Ricky for from an HR perspective, right? What do you look for? So I’m, you know, I have lots of opinions as a recruiter who’s been doing this for a little while now. But what do you look for that or yeah, even more? Also interesting is what are the things that you consider to be knockouts on a resume, you know, the hard doubts if you will.

Ricky Baez 24:59
So, that’s a dangerous question, Pete, here’s why. Because for me, I have a weird way, a weird rationale as to what I look for. A lot of people think that the best thing you can do is to find the person with the most skills, but the most education and I found out that it’s not the case at all, right? Because he put all those skills and all that education on there, all that tells me is, is that you have that skill set. Okay, you got it. What I want to know is how you’re going to use that skill. So for my organization, I want evidence of that. That’s what I want to see.

Ricky Baez 25:35
But what I look for, is that you have the minimum qualifications of the job. Are you capable of performing that skill set it within my organization? I’m gonna ask questions about that. Not more important, but almost as important. Are you a good fit? Are you a good fit for the culture of the organization? Are you a good fit with the team? And here’s why I say that, quick example, you’ve got a team of 25, 24 people, you need one more, the 24 people, they work well, with each other, they get along great. They know how to interact, they know how to have healthy conflict. And then you bring one person who’s got an insane amount of PhDs, all these skill sets, but they don’t know how to communicate with people, they don’t know how to mesh with each other, they don’t build chemistry, would you bring that person in just because they got the skill set? I would not? Because to me, the importance of the skill set is not as important as disrupting the team. And that’s what I think that would do. It will disrupt the team if you bring somebody who doesn’t mesh. So that’s how I do it. Minimum.

Pete Newsome 26:41
But I have to challenge you on that a little bit. Alright, how are you going to determine that from a resume? In an interview, meeting them in person speaking live? For sure. Right? But how does that come across, you know, on a resume? How’s it going to be portrayed?

Ricky Baez 26:54
I’m looking at the cover, I look at the cover letter.

Pete Newsome 26:59
Cover Letter, I just told people not to write a cover letter.

Ricky Baez 27:02
Look, I’m just being honest. To me, the cover letter gives everything personality, right, because anybody can put on a resume that I reduced risk by 15%. Anybody can do that. But I want to see you speak to that. I want to see how passionate you are about this position, how passionate you are about the culture, how passionate you are about putting teams together. And you’re right, I’m not gonna get that from a resume until I get to the interview. But to me, how I get that from the resume is how connected the cover letter personality is to the resume the skill set. So that’s how I look at it. So the the next question is going to be, Ricky, what do you do when you don’t have a cover letter? Because a lot of people don’t put a cover letter. Look, Pete, social media is a great tool.

Pete Newsome 27:51
That we’re not doing that today. That’s its own deal. Okay, okay. But I have to say, you know, think about this. The vast majority of resumes we look at are, they’re coming from one of three ways we’ll say that one is there, they’re online somewhere in a database. We could that could be LinkedIn, it could be indeed, it could be CareerBuilder, they’re online. And so we’re not looking for a cover letter, we’re looking for a specific set of skills, background experience, whatever it might be.

Pete Newsome 28:25
The second way is job applicants coming in, we post for you, we have all our positions open on our own website, sometimes we post them on third-party websites. And when those resumes are coming in, they’re typically not going to come in with a cover letter. The third is referrals, we get a lot of referrals, which is the lifeblood of a business like ours. So we again, are generally getting a resume just sent over. But all of that said, when we send any candidate to a client, almost without exception, I’m sure there are exceptions, I won’t say there’s not. We send what we call a candidate summary or write-up that effectively as a cover letter, we send our explanation of why we’re submitting that particular candidate for that particular role, which pretty much accomplishes what you’re looking for. It’s the why this candidate, you know, answer.

Pete Newsome 29:20
So now I’m thinking okay if I’m in a scenario where it wasn’t an online resume or an online database, it wasn’t just a generic job application. If I was sending a resume directly to you right, blindly to Ricky, specifically, then absolutely, I would write a cover letter, which would be an explanation of why I think I’m the right candidate for your job. So yeah, I think my answer is more indicative of the habits that we’ve created in the digital world, right? I’m not seeing cover letters because there’s really no place for them in those scenarios I described. So, maybe that’s a difference. But all things being equal. Yeah. If I was going to email you a resume blindly, I’d put a cover letter with it. So I’ll call it a cover email. I’d write a cover email.

Ricky Baez 30:15
All right. So we’ve got the resume, the recruiter pulled it right. Now we’ve interviewed, we went through that process. Now, after the interview, why should a candidate do after the interview? Because I know we haven’t really talked about interviews too much. In this show right now.

Pete Newsome 30:35
You said we were doing 30 minutes today. Social media, post-interview. Okay. All right.

Ricky Baez 30:44
This is I love this man.

Pete Newsome 30:45
For the record. She said, Pete, you can’t go, you can’t start talking about too many things. We got to do 30 minutes, but all right.

Ricky Baez 30:51
No, you know what? It’s looking for everybody listening, Pete’s 100%. Right. I said, we got to stick to 30 minutes. Let’s not be all over the place. That’s exactly what we’re doing right now.

Pete Newsome 31:00
We just created like five more reasons to do other shows. That’s good. We do we do you

Ricky Baez 31:06
know, but it’s a good conversation. Pete, it really is good because there are people out there listening right now. If they want to figure out what is the newest thing they need to be doing in order to get their foot in the door. So yes, resumes let’s tailor it, let’s make sure it’s in chronological order. One more thing that we do have to cover because I got to make sure and I can’t believe that we do have to say this. People think so fast that they try to write as fast as they think. And they make little mistakes that can really derail the whole resume process.

Ricky Baez 31:57
Check spelling and grammar is crucial, folks, it is crucial, because that is your first impression of yourself, of marketing yourself to an organization. And something as little as a spelling error, or a grammar error can really derail you. I mean, it’s would you not agree?

Pete Newsome 31:57
Yeah, I’ll go even further and say, you absolutely need to have someone proofread it for you. You don’t trust your own eyes, you won’t pick out the mistakes, because they’re your mistakes. You know, it’s if you’ve made it inadvertently, and you’re probably not going to catch it, your brain wants to definitely have another set of eyes, you know, look at it. But that’s it, we can name many examples of hiring managers who I personally know, who would automatically rule out a candidate because of a grammatical error.

Pete Newsome 32:26
And their logic is this and I can’t dispute it. If that’s all I know about them, right back to this idea of their best foot being forward. And that’s their best foot. What can I expect in their work product after that? Yeah, I mean, and that’s logic, you really can’t dispute. So that’s one of those areas, even if you don’t know how to format a resume, or you don’t know, the right way to portray yourself, that’s an area where there’s just no excuse. And so you couldn’t be more on point with that. I do want to say because you mentioned that and before we go, here, this whole concept of putting, you know, representing yourself in the best possible way, that’s clearly a recurring theme, when we talk about resumes, but you have to be pragmatic in open about what that is. So if you are new in your career, and you’ve only recently gotten out of school, then it would make sense to put that first write highlight that, because if that is your best and most recent accomplishment, graduating from college, for example, then it absolutely makes sense to be at the front of your resume.

Pete Newsome 33:31
And there’s, I hear some weird opinions on this at times very, very strongly rooted opinions too. And keep in mind, so much of this ultimately is subjective, but just put your shooting down in the middle. If you’re a recent grad, go ahead and put that up top right, because that’s what it’s telling me and answers the question as to why you don’t have a wealth of experience or the career progression, that ideally, we’d like to see you haven’t had the chance yet. Conversely, if you’re an old guy like me, and you’ve been out of school for a really long time, I won’t say your degree is irrelevant. But I’m saying it’s largely irrelevant, where everything you’ve done professionally is really what matters. And if someone gets to where my degree is on the fictitious resume that I don’t have, then you know, if they’ve gotten that far, they’re probably already interested. So I would say you really just need to think about what you want the viewer to see you as in that and let that be your guide in determining what that best foot really looks like.

Ricky Baez 34:34
Pete, I think that is the best way to summarize this podcast. When writing a resume, don’t focus on you trying to get the job. Focus on what you want the recruiter to see about you. What skills out there that they can see that they can capitalize on to bring your own board so that spot on. So I think that that right there, how you market yourself, how you present yourself, how you put the commercial out for yourself, I think that’s what’s gonna capture the essence of this episode.

Ricky Baez 35:04
Something else I did want to say, going back record to grammar and spelling errors. Books, don’t only rely on spellcheck. Don’t only rely on that Pete is 100% correct. Give it to somebody else to give it second eyes, the second set of eyes a second opinion to make sure you caught everything. If you are an employer relations manager and you want to show on a resume, you have a lot of experience with unions. If you spill onions correctly, the spellcheck is not going to catch it, right? They’re gonna say, Wow, he sucks at being a union person member, he’s really good at onions. So you want to make sure that it’s on there as well. So Pete, with that said, I know we’re a little bit over. That’s my fault. I apologize. So what are three key things right now that people should walk away from this show where tonight, they can update those resumes and it can help them get that, that job, not that job, but get that attention from the recruiter three key things.

Pete Newsome 36:06
So you’re gonna push me into a corner, I’ll say, the first one is it doesn’t have just one resume, right, have a base resume for sure. But be prepared to customize it for the job at hand. So the first thing I would do is commit yourself to that because it’s really important part of the job search process. Number two, I would say, again, a theme that we’ve touched on repeatedly, make sure that you’re presenting yourself in the way that you want to be seen, and consider what your greatest accomplishments are, and then put them in order accordingly. And make sure it’s formatted I’ll go to to a would-be formatted in a clean way, right for a digital resume. And then the third one, which is you know, fallouts, make sure that or if nothing else, make sure that you do have proper grammar and spelling throughout your resume. It’s really important when you’re making that first impression. So I think if we start there, we’re set up for it for a good outcome.

Ricky Baez 37:11
Excellent, folks. You heard it from the man himself. That’s Pete Newsome, President of 4 Corner Resources. If you want to find out more about what we do, or even the Hire Calling Podcast go to actually shoot us an email Hirecalling@4cornerresources.com, that’s the number 4cornerresources.com if you want to find out more information about what we talked about today, we have a blog on our website 4cornerresources.com/blog/

Ricky Baez 37:39
There is a lot of information out there, folks, there’s information out there for people looking for a job. There’s information out there for employers, on how to bring people in how to keep people there as well. There’s a lot of information out there. Please go check it out. Again, that’s 4cornerresources.com/blog/, anything else?

Pete Newsome 37:59
Don’t ever hesitate. Please call one of our recruiters speak with them directly if you have, if you have questions or you need help with your job search, that’s what we’re here for. That’s what we do all day every day. So by all means reach out to us. And we’d love to help anyone personally who’s listening.

Ricky Baez 38:16
Roger that. Alright, with that said, I’m Ricky Baez. I’ll see you next time. Pete, I’ll see you next time sir.

Pete Newsome 38:23
Ricky, thank you. Alright. Have a good one.

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