Writing your Resume –

The Basics to get you started

TUESDAY, JULY 14TH, 2020PRESENTED BY DARLENE WHYNOT

This webinar is to address the ins and outs of a resume. We will not be speaking about Cover Letters at all, but we do have a webinar about Cover Letters. Watch that webinar that is also available on our website and you will have all the knowledge

you will need to put together a cover letter and a resume!

Why Have A Resume?

• It’s your marketing tool and the product you are marketing is you!

• Showcases knowledge, skills, experience

• Outlines the link between you and job

Quick Facts about Resumes

• Advertised positions usually get lots of applicants

• Resumes must catch the employers eye in the first 10 – 15 seconds

• Resumes should be brief – one or two pages

• Targeted to the job

• Basically…. Only put in information that the employer is going to want to know, make it a representation of you!

To help us show what a resume should be and to create an actual resume,

I will be using the fictional character of “Betty”

Here is the basic information for Betty to be able to start the resume:

Graduated from high school in 2015 Didn’t go to post secondary schoolWorked various jobs Sales Associate at Walmart July 2015 to April 2016 Private home care April 2016 to May 2017 Cashier/Customer Service at Superstore May 2017 to July 2017 Pharmacy Assistant at Superstore August 2017 to Present Volunteers at Shaid Tree

Where to Begin?With your skills!

If you were in an interview and an employer asked you: “What skills do you have, what can you bring to our

company?”What would you say?

Your resume should ALWAYS be customized to the job for which you are applying

How do you do this?

By looking at the Job Description

Back to Betty……

She wants to apply for the position of Client Care Specialist at a Veterinary Clinic

Betty is thinking…. “I want this job, but do I have the skills they are looking for?”

Let’s look at the Job DescriptionPosition Overview:

The role of the Client Care Specialist (CCS) is to strengthen the human-animal-veterinary bond through exceptional care. Your role is vital to the successes of our hospital as you are the first and last contact the client has with us whether it is in person or on the phone. As a representative of South Shore Veterinary Services it is your primary job to ensure that the client and their pet feel welcomed, expertly cared for and immensely appreciated. As a CCS your job involves patient and client care, administrative duties, and general housekeeping duties.

Attributes:

· Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

· Ability to work with a variety of typical office equipment such as a computer and multiple types of software and social media tools, phone, fax, email, etc.

· Prior knowledge of or the ability to learn medical terminology and veterinary software programs is required.

· Able to work equally effectively with or without supervision.

· Coachable, eager learner who is open to feedback.

· Possess great attention to detail and excellent organizational skills.

· Excels in a fast-paced environment.

· Enjoys connecting with people in a genuine, friendly and compassionate manner.

Educational Requirements:

· High school diploma is required.

· Previous client care/customer service experience is required.

· Graduation from an approved Veterinary Assistant Program or relevant background in animal health is preferred.

· Current First Aid Certification.

Interested parties should forward their resume and cover letter, complete with 3 professional references.

Job Type: Full-time

Application Deadline: 2020-06-28

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Experience:

customer service: 1 year (Required)Job Duties:

Answer incoming customer inquiries Engage with clients in a friendly and professional manner while actively listening to

their concerns Offer support and solutions to customers in accordance with the company's

customer service policies Other duties as requested

Next Step: Highlight the skills on the job description that you see as important.

Position Overview:

The role of the Client Care Specialist (CCS) is to strengthen the human-animal-veterinary bond through exceptional care. Your role is vital to the successes of our hospital as you are the first and last contact the client has with us whether it is in person or on the phone. As a representative of We Love Animals Veterinary Services it is your primary job to ensure that the client and their pet feel welcomed, expertly cared for and immensely appreciated. As a CCS your job involves patient and client care, administrative duties, and general housekeeping duties.

Attributes:

· Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

· Ability to work with a variety of typical office equipment such as a computer and multiple types of software and social media tools, phone, fax, email, etc.

· Prior knowledge of or the ability to learn medical terminology and veterinary software programs is required.

· Able to work equally effectively with or without supervision.

· Coachable, eager learner who is open to feedback.

· Possess great attention to detail and excellent organizational skills.

· Excels in a fast-paced environment.

· Enjoys connecting with people in a genuine, friendly and compassionate manner.

Educational Requirements:

· High school diploma is required.

· Previous client care/customer service experience is required.

· Graduation from an approved Veterinary Assistant Program or relevant background in animal health is preferred.

· Current First Aid Certification.

Interested parties should forward their resume and cover letter, complete with 3 professional references.

Job Type: Full-time

Application Deadline: 2020-06-28

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Experience:

customer service: 1 year (Required)Job Duties:

Answer incoming customer inquiries Engage with clients in a friendly and professional manner while actively listening to

their concerns Offer support and solutions to customers in accordance with the company's

customer service policies Other duties as requested

Betty is going to take those skills the employer is looking for and put them on paper as a list:

Betty saw that there were some skills that could be grouped together, she put those together:Strengthen Human-Animal-Veterinarian Bond Genuine, friendly, compassionateClient and pet feel welcomedExceptional Care Patient and Client Care Client Care/Customer service experience

First and last contact Communication Skills Actively listening to customers concerns Offer support and solutions to customers Answer incoming customer inquiries

Administrative duties Office Equipment Knowledge or ability to learn medical terminology Learn veterinary program software Attention to detail Excellent organizational skills

Work with or without supervision CoachableEager Fast paced environment

General housekeeping duties

Relevant background in animal health

These are the areas that Betty needs to address in her resume for the Client Care Specialist. First, she will take each of these groups and write down how she can demonstrate these skills.

Strengthen Human-Animal-Veterinarian Bond Genuine, friendly, compassionateClient and pet feel welcomedExceptional Care Patient and Client Care Client Care/Customer service experience

Able to bond with all these groups separately. Every job has involved customer and client interaction, providing a caring environment as a private care worker. Work at Shaid tree – handled cats and dogs that were timid and able to make them feel more comfortable by being calm and having patience. Comfy room one on one, with treats and quiet talk. Have always enjoyed helping others, from the time as sales associate – helped people find product and if we couldn’t find it, made arrangements for them to find product. Cashier, wanted to make sure everyone had a great experience, provided friendly service with a smile.Moved quickly from cashier to pharmacy assistant, was a promotion.

First and last contact Communication Skills Actively listening to customers concerns Offer support and solutions to customers Answer incoming customer inquiries

Understand how important our part in a person’s day can be, experienced this with private home care. Also, with animals. When working with public I have always had to deal with frustrated customers and try to help them so they will leave me not frustrated. I never say I don’t know or I can’t help. I find out the answer and/or I get someone to help. Answered phones in my most recent job.

Administrative duties Office Equipment Knowledge or ability to learn medical terminology Learn veterinary program software Attention to detail Excellent organizational skills

Had to use computer systems and debit/credit machine in all jobs. Had to learn each of the different software that every job used. Am quite computer savvy, so I learned the new software systems quickly. Because of my experience in private home care, I had to know some medical terminology. I needed to know what client may be suffering with, names of medications, how much of each, how clients needed to be handled. This also applied to Shaid, animals would have different conditions and be on different medications, I helped to administer medication.Use Microsoft programs personally, Hotmail, calendar, word, PowerPoint. These skills followed me from high school, and I have always used them.

Work with or without supervision CoachableEager Fast paced environment

Pharmacy assistant could be hectic, we needed to count the medication, properly label the bottle and file it for pick up. This was constant sometimes because there were so many orders coming in. I was taught new skills in every job, I learned how to hold animals when they were getting injections, I needed to learn the cash register system at each job, enjoy being trained properly. I am able to stay on task and get the tasks that need to be completed by the end of day.

This was a big part of private care, I needed to sweep, vacuum, and mop floors. Dusted, cleaned bathrooms. I also have WHIMIS because of my work in private care and at the superstore.

Relevant background in animal health

I have been working at the Shaid tree since May 2017. The duties started as cleaning litter boxes and playing with them to provide enrichment. It moved up to helping administer medications, weighing animals, and working with animals that needed more attention to socialize them. Working with animals is what my passion is. I also have my own animals, I have 4 cats that are from rescues, and I have 3 bunnies that I rescued when found as babies. I brought the bunnies in not knowing how to take care of them and I was able to feed them and help them grow and become the bunnies they are today.

Next step is to start putting together the resume. Betty will be using Microsoft Word to type her resume. If you don’t have Microsoft Word

you can purchase it online, or there is a free program that is called “Open Office”. This program is suppose to be comparable to Microsoft Word,

but free.

The website is www.openoffice.org

Resume Format• Contact Information• Career Profile/Employment Objective• Skills Summary • Employment History• Education• Training/Professional Development• Volunteer Activities/ Community

Involvement• Other

These headings for your resume can be different for different people and different jobs. For example, the “Career Profile” or “Employment Objective” may or may not be used in your resume. This is because if you have a cover letter to go with your resume you wouldn’t need that section in your resume, but if you are not going to have a cover letter, that section would be useful. Betty is not going to be having a cover letter, so she will be using this section in her resume.So, here we go, let’s get started and write a resume!

As you can see, Betty started her resume by putting down her Name, Address, Email Address and Phone number. These are the must haves for a resume. Do not attach a picture to your resume, it is not a common practice in our location.The first thing Betty is going to work on is her career profile. Once she listened to my variations of what this could be called, she is going to call hers “Summary of Qualifications”, she likes that one the most.

This can also be called a “Career Summary”, “Profile Statement”, “Resume profile”, or “Summary of Qualifications”

These all mean the same thing, that you will be writing down a brief summary of your skills. You want to grab the employers attention by putting keywords from the job descriptions her.

This was taken from the website “The Balance Careers”. This is a FANTASTIC resource for all things related to finding a job and once you have found a job. Have any type of employment question, this website will provide answers. So seeing this and knowing what her head title would be, she started writing her Summary of Qualifications.

Betty started to write her summary of qualifications, this is as far as she could get. This can be a daunting task when it is the first thing you start on your resume.

To help get Betty thinking about what she has done for work experience and the skills associated with each job, we are going to start with Employment History part of the resume.

This is what Betty came up with when she wrote the employment history part of her resume:

The problem with this,Is she has not put much thought into the skills she did at each job, they are not reflecting what the employer is looking for. It is a good start, but we need to go back to a few things to help write what is called “Skill Sentences”. We need what she wrote when she broke down the job descriptions into groups and some resources to help with wording

Some of those resources that will help to write the Skill sentences are a list of Action Verbs and a list of Soft skills

A accomplished achieved acted adapted administered advised aided analyzed anticipated applied appointed approved arbitrated arranged assembled assigned assisted audited B budgeted built C calculated certified changed coached combined communicated compiled conceived conducted consolidated constructed consulted controlled convinced corrected counselled

D decreased delegated delivered demonstrated designed developed devised diagnosed directed discovered E earned edited effected eliminated engineered enhanced enlarged ensured established estimated evaluated exceeded executed expanded expedited F forecast founded G generated guided H headed hired

I identified illustrated implemented improved increased influenced informed initiated inspected inspired installed instituted instructed integrated interpreted interviewed introduced invented investigated J joined L launched led located M managed manufactured marketed maximized mediated merged minimized modernized monitored motivated

N negotiated O obtained operated ordered organized originated P packaged perfected performed persuaded pioneered planned prepared presented presided preserved prevented procured produced programmed projected promoted protected provided published purchased R received recommended recognized recovered recruited reduced remedied re-negotiated

reorganized repaired researched resolved restored retrieved revamped reversed revised revitalized S saved scheduled secured served simplified sold solved standardized stimulated streamlined strengthened summarized supervised supported surveyed T taught trained translated U upgraded V verified W wrote

Soft Skills are the skills that you possess that can be applicable to any job, these are skills you can take with you to each job and it is soft skills that employers are looking for the most!Here is a list of soft skills with that main skill broken down to specific soft skills:

CommunicationListeningNegotiationNonverbal communicationPersuasionPresentationPublic speakingReading body languageStorytellingVerbal communicationVisual communicationWriting reports and proposalsWriting skills

Critical ThinkingAdaptabilityArtistic aptitudeCreativityCritical observationCritical thinkingDesign aptitudeDesire to learnFlexibilityInnovationLogical thinkingProblem solvingResearchResourcefulnessThinking outside the boxTolerance of change and uncertaintyTroubleshootingValue educationWillingness to learn

LeadershipConflict managementConflict resolutionDeal makingDecision makingDelegationDispute resolutionFacilitationGiving clear feedbackInspiring peopleManagementManaging difficult conversationsManaging remote/virtual teamsMeeting managementMentoringMotivatingProject managementSuccessful coachingSupervisingTalent management

Positive AttitudeConfidenceCooperationCourtesyEnergyEnthusiasmFriendlinessHonestyHumorousPatienceRespectabilityRespectfulness

TeamworkAccepting feedbackCollaborationCustomer serviceDealing with difficult situationsDealing with office politicsDisability awarenessDiversity awarenessEmotional intelligenceEmpathyEstablishing interpersonal relationshipsDealing with difficult personalitiesIntercultural competenceInterpersonal skillsInfluenceNetworkingPersuasionSelf-awarenessSelling skillsSocial skillsTeam building

Work EthicAttentivenessCompetitivenessDedicationFollowing directionIndependenceMeeting deadlinesMotivationOrganizationPerseverancePersistencePlanningProper business etiquettePunctualityReliabilityResilienceResults-orientationSchedulingSelf-directionSelf-supervisingStrategic planningTime managementWorking well under pressure

Hard skills are part of the skill set that is required to do that job. They include the expertise necessary for an individual to successfully do the job. They are job-specific and are typically listed in job postings and job descriptions.

Here are some examples of some hard skills:

AccountingAdministrativeAnalyticsAuditingAutomotive TechnologyBanking OperationsBookkeepingBudgetingCarpentryConstructionDatabase ManagementDesignEditingElectricalEngineeringFinancialHardwareHealthcareJava ScriptLanguagesLegal

Manufacturing TechnologyMarketing ResearchMechanicalMedical DiagnosisNursingOptimizationPharmaceutical CodingPipefittingPython ProgrammingProject ManagementProposal WritingReportingScienceSoftwareSocial Media MarketingSpreadsheetsTeachingTechnical WritingTesting

TranslationTranscriptionWord Processing

Betty took those resources that were shown (groups from the job description, list of action verbs and soft skills, she also used Thesaurus.com. She used this to come up with other words that she though might work better.

With using these resources this is what she was able to do with her work history and explaining what she did in each job and connecting it to the job she is applying for.

You will also see as she was working on that section, she was able to start a section called “Relevant Skills”. This is a good section to have right at the top and to showcase skills you know the employer is looking for, this way their eye catches those skills right away.

You will also see that the last job she hasn’t done much with b/c she is debating as to whether she needs it in her resume.

Let’s compare to where Betty started with her resume to where she is now

Once Betty had her employment history written with skill sentences that applied to each job, that made it easier for her to write some top relevant skills. She again used the same resources – job description she grouped, verbs list, soft skills list, and the thesaurus.

Some tips for writing relevant skills:- These should be the top skills the client is looking for, look at the

job description. When you group the skills like Betty did, they will be popping out at you. For Betty, she could see the skills were administration, technology, customer service, be a good worker, and of course, handling and caring for animals. These are the things she addressed in her relevant skills.

- Do not repeat what you have under each job in the relevant skill list, they may overlap a bit, but say something different. Don’t waste the limited space you have to tell employer you are perfect for the job.

- Keep it at 5 or 6 points maximum, 4 at a minimum.

Let me show you what Betty did on paper to help her make these skill sentences….

It seems like writing a resume is strenuous and detailed, and it seems you must think about every single sentence…….

Once Betty finished her relevant skills, she then went on to finish writing her Summary of Qualifications. She wrote this in a way to answer that question that was asked earlier – If we were to hire you, what would you bring to the company. This came easier to her once she had broken down each job and thought about what she did at each job, it was then that her skills started to come out. It also helped her to break down the job description and really see what the main skills they were looking for.

SO….Let’s take a look at Betty’s resume with all the info she thinks she needs to put in

the resume to make a good impression.

Wow! That turned out pretty good, I think I’m done my resume!

Now you are probably thinking:

You should review the actual job description again and compare that to your resume. Check to see if you have used some keywords from the

job description in your resume.

Why you ask?Because of the dreaded…..

ATS!

It’s not as scary as it seems…..

ATS stands for Automatic Tracking System

(See what I did there???)

You don’t need to have all of the words that are in the job description in your resume. You need enough key words so the computer system will want to send your resume to a human, maybe around 50% of what was in the job description? (Honestly, I am coming up with this percentage out of nowhere, I don’t know how many of the words you should have, it’s a judgement call). You need a balance of using the words, but now using so many that what you are saying doesn’t make sense. You want to use the words to your benefit.

So, are we done?

Final Steps….. I promise!

Now that Betty is satisfied with what she has put in her resume and that she has conveyed the message she wants the employer to receive, she just has a couple more

things:

- Formatting the resume- Proofreading it a few times (She doesn’t want a spelling or grammar error to take

her out of the running)- Getting someone else to proofread it (Bonus: Have them read the job description

first!)

Betty completed the above tasks. Lets take a look at the final product…..

Contact Us

Phone: (902) 543-2479Toll Free: 1 (866) 711-0411Email: info@empsolutions.caWebsite: www.empsolutions.ca

You can access this webinar and others on our YouTube Channel:

Nova Scotia Works, Employment Solutions Society

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyHwE7vwqAp6bHvn9f3ZfTg?view_as=subscriber