Resume Disasters and How To Avoid Them.

Katherine Bouglai:

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Conversations with Blossom Career. I’m Katherine Bouglai. Loving what you do isn’t necessary to survival, but it sure makes life a whole lot better. After a devastating layoff, I found my true passion, which is helping professionals identify and land their dream jobs. If you are ready to make a change, you are in the right place. Let’s get started.

Well. Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode number three of Conversations with Blossom Career. And today, we’re going to talk about resume disasters and how to avoid them. And I have a special guest on our call, Cathy Lanzalaco, who is a resume writer, a really awesome one and a good old friend of mine. Hi, Cathy. It’s good to see you here.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Hey, Katherine. Hello. Happy to be here. Thank you.

Katherine Bouglai:

So, are ready to talk about resume disasters?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Oh, the resume wall of shame as I call it. Yes, let’s talk about it.

Katherine Bouglai:

It sounds like you’ve seen quite a few of them.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Yeah.

Katherine Bouglai:

And before we go on, I just want to make it clear, we’re not here to shame anyone.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Yeah, I think that’s a really great point. I mean, the message here is that with some time and just a little different perspective, people can have their resumes transformed tremendously. So now it is not meant to shame. But there are some things that we have seen that we will call out that absolutely are inappropriate. And those should change. But we’ll talk about those too, right?

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. Absolutely. So the first thing I want to talk about is employment gaps. And before I go on, again, employment gaps on their own are not a disaster. It’s what people do about them and how they explain. For lack of better word, explaining fits perfectly, as if they owe some kind of explanation, how people explain employment gaps. So Cathy, what have you seen?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Well, I think the biggest one really is because of COVID. I mean, I think there’s still millions of people out of work. Even though many of the states are reopening, which I think is a wonderful thing. There are so many people that lost their jobs at the beginning of COVID and many of them have not found employment.

And so there’s still is grace being given to those folks, particularly in hospitality, there’s some different areas that were more impacted than others. I think some of those folks too, are waiting for their jobs to come back as the economy comes back, which is a really exciting thing for them. But in the meantime, they have been out of work for a year. So I think really that that’s one of the biggest ones that we’re dealing with today.

Katherine Bouglai:

Absolutely. And thank you for mentioning it. You really don’t owe any explanation to anybody. So I’ve seen people do things like waiting for visa. And they put the years and then they just put on their resume waiting for a visa, or raising two children on my own and then taking care of an aging parent.

And then they would add a bunch of things they did, almost sounding like, well, you try that and see how you can work. The point is that employers don’t really care. It’s not about whether you were working or not during this time. It’s about your skills being relevant and can you do the job that you are applying for.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. And I think that’s where people fail to understand why the gap, what the issue with the gap is. They do feel like, oh, do I have to be employed the entire time of my whole adult life? No, you absolutely don’t. But what have you been doing to keep up on the changes in whatever industry that you’re in? How are you maintaining your skills?

If your job is very heavily into networking and connections, what are you doing to continue to nurture those relationships during that time? Those are the types of things that employers are looking for. They really don’t care, to your point, if you wanted to stay home and take care of your kids for a while. Or maybe you have had an illness or maybe just needed a break. I mean, hello, who doesn’t. I think there’s a lot of that. But it really is just being able to tell that story and fill in the gaps because otherwise, employers will fill it in for you. And it may not be as favorable as you’d like to present it.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m just going to mention it. I’ve seen one guy and I’m going to declare him a winner for the biggest disaster of filling in the gap. I’ve actually seen one person in my entire six years who put down years, 2018 to 2020 unemployed. So let’s talk about what can you put. What do we recommend that you do instead to make yourself look good on your resume?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Well, it really is about continuous learning and about continuous development. And it all depends on the industry that you’re in what is important. So how are you doing that? And really, in today’s world, it’s so easy in many regards to be doing that, even for traditional industries like healthcare. Maybe you’re a nurse that’s been out of work for a while, for whatever reason, you had a baby, wanted to stay home.

There’s so many things that happen, different things with COVID or whatever. And you can still take classes online, right? There’s still tutorials that you can take, there’s still information you can get. Maybe even to be able to stay per diem somewhere just once a month to be able to keep your scales current if you’re working in, say, a critical care setting, something like that.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

But today with things like Coursera and LinkedIn and all the different platforms that you can take courses in and all the own industries have their own proprietary platforms that you can use. It’s also a great time if you are someone that has a certification. My background is in HR and I have certifications for working in HR. If you’re not employed, what a great time to be catching up on your CEUs to be able to make sure that you have all of your certifications current. You never want to let those types of things lapse while you’re out of work.

Katherine Bouglai:

Absolutely. And thank you. Those are all really good points. And just to summarize, there are three things that you can fill in the gap on your resume with. So one is learning, continuing education, taking classes, going back to school, or just simply taking courses online.

And you can do this by going to LinkedIn Learning. So any paid premium LinkedIn package will give you access to LinkedIn Learning, which is an amazing tool. It’s 30 bucks a month. You can search for any tool that would be useful in your industry and take an online class.

There’s also Coursera. There is your Udacity. And the good news is that you don’t have to explain what the courses were and where you took them as long as you just tell what specifically you have learned in some details about it. It just shows the employer that you’ve been current with what’s happening with the cutting-edge technology. So you’re not behind the technology when you are reapplying after the gap.

Katherine Bouglai:

The other thing you can fill the gap with is volunteer work. So, if you’re waiting for your visa or you’re raising a kid, you can always volunteer, find an organization that you really care about, cause you really care about and join them. Even if it’s not related to the work that you do, it still gives what I would call a dimension to your personality.

It still makes you look good if it shows who you are as a person and what you care about. The third thing that you can fill in the gap with is starting your own business. So, if you do any personal projects, freelancing, or if you have a business going on the side. Again, you don’t have to mention the fact that it was on the side, but you can just call out the business name and then talk about your accomplishments that you’ve made.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Yeah. And for people that may hear that and feel intimidated by that, take it down a level. And if you’re not prepared to start a business or you don’t have the availability to do freelancing, start a blog, start a podcast. something to demonstrate that you’re still in the mix of your industry where you can actually showcase what you know and your skills. So it doesn’t have to be that you have to start putting out a shingle and you’re going to have to make these huge investments.

The idea here is just to keep your finger current, figure in back in the industry pie, if you will. And you can do that absolutely contributing to articles online, being very active on LinkedIn and being able to demonstrate your knowledge base for conversations that you’re involved in or in groups and publishing information. It can really be that simple. And it still achieves what you’re talking about in terms of taking control of your own situation instead of worrying about, well, where’s that next job coming from? Or I’m going to be out of work for a year, what am I going to do? There’s plenty of places that you can demonstrate that.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. And most importantly, don’t forget about your accomplishments. That’s what they want to know, what have you accomplished during this time? What have you learned? And focus on that. So, Cathy, I also wanted to touch a little bit on employment gaps that are not recent. We’ve been talking about the gap that just happened in the last year because of COVID or in the last five years for other reasons non-related to COVID, but what about a gap that happened five or 10 years ago? So you have a gap between 2012 and 2015.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Well, I think the only time you need to worry about it is, and not worry about it per se, but consider what you have, what your story is for the gaps. So for instance, if there was a big gap in your resume five or 10 years ago and that’s because you were fired, just make sure that you have a really concise statement about that. But if it’s 10 years ago, it probably isn’t relevant anymore, unless there was some really extenuating circumstance or something that was a particularly egregious.

But if it’s just not a good organizational fit, I mean, really one line, a one line response to a potential employer can cover that if it costs you to be out of work for a while or if maybe it was somebody that 10 years ago stayed home to raise their children, again, 10 years ago, saying that I prioritize my family at that point and I’ve said, done. So to your point, you made the statement earlier, you don’t have to go into every detail, regardless of how long ago it was. And actually, the longer ago it was, the less it matters.

Katherine Bouglai:

Exactly. And personally, I don’t know about you, but if it was 10 years ago, I wouldn’t even mention it.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

I wouldn’t mention it unless I was asked.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah, you mention it on a job interview, but I wouldn’t mention it on the resume. I would just put things as they are. And the truth is they may not even notice, they may not even care. But if they do care, they will ask. And for that to be prepared, I would recommend being prepared how you would answer that question. Awesome. Okay. So let’s move on.

Graphic resumes is the next topic, to do or not to do, to have them or not to have them and how. And there’s been so many misunderstandings out there about graphic resumes. Some people just avoid them, some people resumes look really plain and there’s no formatting to it and they’re just not attractive. And then other people go the other way, they’ll go Google graphic resumes, they’ll find a template that they like and they think, oh, I’m just going to fill it in and use it as my resume. So Cathy, why is it a bad idea to do both?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Well, I think for any resume that you create, I don’t care if it’s graphically enhanced, I don’t care if it’s your typical black and white resume, I think you always have to know who your audience is. So when I’m working with people in banking and in healthcare, in compliance, in technology, generally speaking, those were very conservative industries where, and I’ll qualify the technology in a minute, depending on what you’re doing in technology.

Sometimes if you’re coding, they really don’t need to see all the bells and whistles, but they do want to know about your accomplishments. So even if you choose to use graphically enhanced resumes for different industries, like some of the really creative industries or salespeople, that’s really a great outlet for their resumes as well to be able to demonstrate some of their successes, because they generally come to a resume writer with a lot of metrics and a lot of ability to quantify their accomplishments. So that could be a really great avenue. You really have to know your audience.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

But when you do use a graphically enhanced resume, you have to be aware of how to use it. So you mentioned templates, so when people go online to get templates and their resume is all jacked up, it may not make it through the ATS, the applicant tracking software. And there is some formatting that does not go through there well and would prevent part of their resume from being read.

So the point of a resume is to get a reader’s attention, whether it’s the recruiter or the hiring manager, and you can do that through some just slight use of color, but really more important about the formatting and about the content that you put in there. Graphic resumes are great and they can be fun and you can use them for networking resumes in particular, but you have to be cautious how you use them and know how to use them or all that effort is going to waste, nobody may ever see it.

Katherine Bouglai:

Absolutely. I mean, you said it, you mentioned some industries are more conservative than others. And if you are applying for a job as a graphic designer, you probably do want to use some elements, but use them tastefully. Also keep in mind that most employers do use applicant tracking system. And there are certain things if you go too far with graphics, you can really mess up the look of your resume once it gets scanned. And some people have done really, the worst thing you can do is do your resume in Photoshop.

Yeah, I’ve worked with a lot of creative people in design, graphic and branding, and they use InDesign software or Photoshop, and then they save it as a PDF. And the problem is you can’t really see the text at all. So when it gets scanned is a completely blank resume, they don’t see anything at all. So just keep in mind.

And when I do, I always like to add a little bit of color or a little bit of the formatting, even if it’s a conservative industry like software engineering, you can still add a little bit so that it’s easy to read, it’s a clean format. And just changing the format sometimes without changing any content of the resume itself can really transform the look of your resume and create that look of accomplishment. Don’t you agree?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

I totally agree. And I think what you’re also describing is making it easier for the recruiter or the hiring manager who’s ever reading your resume, make it easy on them, let them be able to find the information that they’re looking for easily, right? Think about if they have 20 or 30 other resumes out on their desk, don’t you want yours to be the one that their eye gravitates to?

And not for bad reasons, not for all the bells, whistles and colors that distract them because some people that are not used to that or they have a hard time having to figure out what you’re trying to tell them. They’ll put it in the trash, they don’t care. But something that is tastefully done and is organized well so that they can find the information that they’re looking for by scanning it with their eye, well, you’re doing yourself a great favor and you’re much more likely to end up in the A pile, as opposed to the B or C pile.

The other thing I would say is if you’re applying for a particular company, maybe something really creative, maybe like a Google, if you want to work there and you’re not really sure what you should do with your resume, ask somebody, ask someone, either a professional that has worked with clients that have applied successfully there, or talk to people at Google, try to get some handle on what kind of information are they looking for. There are some very specific things that are appropriate for one company and are not appropriate for others. Don’t be afraid to ask.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah, that’s a good idea, especially if you have somebody you can ask, if you have a friend that works there, that’s a big advantage. So make sure you take advantage of it.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Absolutely.

Katherine Bouglai:

Okay. Awesome. I want to talk the next topic. Is there anything else you want to say about graphic resumes before we move on?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

No, just use with care. That’s really the thing for those. They can be a lot of fun, but just know how to use them.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. They can be. And also, if you’re having really hard time with it and a lot of people do, just hire a professional.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Hello. Absolutely. That’s the best way to do it.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. So you don’t have to worry about, and we know what we’re doing here. Okay. So I’m going to talk about objective statements versus summary statements. And we know objective statement is the thing of the ’90s. They don’t use them anymore, but even with the summary statements, I noticed that people still have kind of a confused, wrong idea what the summary statement is, what’s the purpose of a summary statement and what to put there.

So I’ve seen a lot of people still using objective statement, telling your career goals, which honestly nobody cares about, or they change and they use the summary statement, but they use it to really pamper themselves, tons of adjectives, oh, I’m great and hire me or a bunch of corporate buzzwords, and the statements that really don’t carry any meaning whatsoever other than make you look good. So Cathy, your thoughts on that, please?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Yeah. Well, I think it’s important for people to understand why we don’t use the objective statement anymore. To your point, people don’t care. I mean, if you think about it, if you’re applying for a job, they know that your objective is to work at their company. So it really is a waste of space. And what you should always be doing is presenting your value to a company, not what you want.

There’s a time and a place for that in negotiations and when you’re in the interview and asking questions about the culture and things that are important to you, but the resume is just meant to get you an interview. So please, recognize that it’s all about service to the employer at that point, showing what your value is to them. And that is what the summary section should be doing. Sometimes people do get carried away with the adjectives, to your point, using words like accomplished, and well, we would imagine that you would be right before you apply for a job.

A better way to frame that is personal branding. And I know you and I both work with our clients on personal branding. Today, personal branding is the name of the game in resumes, tell me what your value is, tell me why you’re different than the other 20 applicants that I might be interviewing for this job. And the summary section is a great place to be able to do that, to tell something unique about you. Certainly, you can integrate that into the other parts of the resume. And you definitely should be integrating that into your cover letter and your LinkedIn profile.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

But in terms of the resume, that summary statement is a wonderful thing to be able to separate yourself out from the crowd. It may end up being the only thing that a recruiter reads, that like probably the top third of the resume. So people that are handing in two and three, not two, but two is pretty standard, but three, four, and five page resumes, nobody’s reading it. But if you put all that great information in the top, in that summary section and somewhere where people can see it immediately, you’re going to get much more interest from that. And that again, it’s going to help separate you into that A pile versus the B and C.

Katherine Bouglai:

And saying something, accomplished, goal-oriented, professional with six years of experience, delivering high-quality, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, anybody can say that. And frequently, people are tired of seeing summary statements that are just too generic and don’t carry any value for them.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

You made a great point. And I think isn’t that a great way for people to test how effective their summary statement is? Cover up the rest of your resume, and then read the summary statement and say, could this be anybody? Or is it me? Could I hand this off to my neighbor, amazed at who apply for a job? And if the answer is, I don’t see me anywhere in here, then you know that you need to take another look at it and go back and really dig a little deeper and bring out some of the information that’s unique to you.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. And then another tip I heard is, look at your summary statement, remove all the adjectives and see how it reads without the adjectives. People use adjectives to boost something. And for someone who has that personality like, oh, they love a lot of adjectives, it’s going to be a tough exercise.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

And trying to lighten it up a little bit for people. It’s not that you can’t use any, but it’s when, that is if you’re using those and you’re using those to replace the accomplishments, the real important information, because either you don’t know how to frame it, you’re not sure what to say, or you’re trying to cover up information that you’re just not sure what you have to offer, then that’s where the problem comes in.

But don’t fret over one or two within the resume, but really, it’s that accomplishment focus, unique value offering, spend less time worrying about those other things. But every time you see one, say, what can I better say? What else could I say that’s unique to me, as opposed to that buzzword, high performing that could apply to everybody in your sector or everybody in your neighborhood.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. So the next topic we’re going to cover is buzzwords. And it sounds like we already on it. So have you had people come to you, Cathy, and say, hey, could you put a bunch of buzzwords on my resume so recruiters bite?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Yeah. I mean, if you’re talking about buzzwords and AKA keywords or just keep loading it up with different things. Again, recruiters are smart enough, they see that and may know that they are just words, really, it’s about demonstrating, it’s about storytelling, it’s about really getting into the meat of what you do. And that doesn’t mean you need three, four, five, and 12 pages to tell that story, it’s conciseness and it’s information. And the more buzzwords put in there that are not relevant, that are not important to the job that you’re applying for, the space that you’re wasting when you could be using that space to really tell the employer what they want to know.

Katherine Bouglai:

Absolutely. And I actually had a recruiter come up to me once and say, “Katherine, you write resumes, right? Yes. So what’s up with the buzzwords? Why is it that everybody, I’m so tired of seeing resumes with a lot of buzzwords.” And it’s not just one recruiter. I’ve had multiple recruiters tell me. And there was this one girl in my networking group who was working with a lot of recruiters and she mentioned the same thing. I just want to talk a little bit more about what does it mean? Because people, I don’t think people even understand how buzzwords or keywords work, or what is the difference between the two?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Yeah. Again, when I hear, think about buzzwords, I think about trendy words, I think about stuff that everybody can throw around, like quick learner and things that I’m not really even sure what that means. Keywords are words that are industry specific and actually should be job and position specific to help you navigate that ATS to help you align best with the job posting when you get your resume uploaded online.

But even if you’re not doing that, and if you’re doing the right thing really, the best thing for job search is networking and being able to share your resume with your trusted network. So even if you’re doing that and somebody reads your resume, having words that really don’t mean anything, back to some of the adjectives, some of those can be buzzwords as well.

But if you can’t quantify those words that you have in there, if you can’t explain how they relate to your experience directly, then why have them in there at all, because the recruiters, again, they’re smart enough and they will call you on it. And they can tell when you’re just stuffing your resume full of words and things just to try to fool the system or try to impress the recruiter. You have to be able to take account for all of those words and everything that you put on that piece of paper, be prepared to answer to it. So, if you’re putting words on there, but you don’t know what they mean or you haven’t used them before, beware, you just have to be cautious about that.

Katherine Bouglai:

Absolutely. And I agree. So buzzwords, things like proven track record, accomplished, team player, they don’t have any meaning to recruiter or hiring manager because, A, anybody can say them, and B, they’re tired of seeing them, but keywords, anything industry specific, the skill, the software they want you to learn, they want you to know really well, the kind of tools that you’re going to be working with, those are important keywords. And the reason is because when they do the search for the right candidate, they want to make sure that the person has those skills.

So the more keywords you have on your resume, the more likely it’s going to come up. So they’re going to search for them specifically, but nobody is going to search for proven track record or accomplished or things, they’re really arbitrary. Okay. So the next thing I want to talk about and the last is bullet points and what we would call, in the resume writing world would call a polka dot look. People think that the more bullet points they have on their resume, the better.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

But I think they do think that, but I think the confusion comes in is what the bullet point is supposed to be used for. A typical resume that I see when someone comes to me to transform their resume, because that’s what I always call it, resume transformation, and when they come to me, what I often times see is like a 10 or 12 bullet list of everything. But what it is, is very little accomplishments and very focused on copying and pasting that job description.

And so that’s where so many people are wasting bullet points on this job description. It’s so less important about what you did versus how you did it and the results that you got, but they can fill up one or two pages with bullet points just on that. And that’s not what employers are looking for. The bullet points should be to call out important points, which should be accomplishments, process focus, what results that you received.

And generally, a good practice is to only have three to five at the most under any one given job description that you have. Again, it should not be a whole page of here’s my job description, it should be taking out the highlights to those to help people understand just at a very high level overview what exactly that you did, but the bullet points, when you see those, those are going to draw the eye to those, what it’s meant to do. But when they do, you need to give people something to look at. If they’re reading your job description, don’t even bother doing the bullet point, you’re in that C pile.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah, absolutely. And I just wanted to add, I’ve transformed a few, quite a few resumes that had 11 or 12 or more bullet points. Having a paragraph of job description, a small paragraph, just talk, I mean, it’s important to talk about what you were hired for, but don’t write too much in that section and then maybe have three to four bullet points. It actually looks nicer to have three bullet points than 10 or 20 of them. And they’re missing the point.

Again, the point of having bullet points is to direct the reader’s attention because it’s easier to read them. And sometimes when you read a document, you can skip through some sections, but then you read the bullet points and your mind tells you that this is important information, so pay attention to this. So the reader eyes will focus on the bullet points automatically, but if you have so many of them, again, you’re completely losing the point of having them at all, because there is really nothing to focus your eyes on.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Yeah, absolutely. So this goes back to, if you’re not really sure about what you’re doing, you can be doing more damage. And what that means is not getting the right attention, getting the wrong type of attention on your resume, not getting the right, not being able to communicate your value in effective way.

There’s a D pile too, folks. Let me tell you about that. That’s the circular file, right? So that’s where so many, many of these resumes go. I mean, how many people are listening to this that say, oh, well, what about that black hole? Well, I’ll tell you, the black hole of resumes is filled with resumes that are full of buzzwords, that are full of bullet points, that are full of job description postings.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

And let’s talk about, to Katherine’s, I think you were going to get to this, but let’s talk about things not to include on there because it’s really important. And people are putting things on resumes that disqualify them immediately without a recruiter even reading their information. Things like on there like, people are still, I’m seeing pictures on resumes. In Europe, that’s fine. That’s absolutely acceptable in most countries in Europe, but not here in the States. It’s not acceptable. The only exception to that is if it’s a very specific industry like modeling, right? And that’s a whole portfolio thing and that’s a whole different thing. Nobody else needs a picture. So that needs to come off.

When you’re telling personal information about yourself, the things that could cause a recruiter to unintentionally discriminate against you. When they see these things on a resume, they will throw the resume out. So, if you’re telling me how old you are, if you’re putting your picture on there, if you’re calling out certain things, and there’s some more subtle things too, like people putting their home addresses on there still, not a good idea at all.

So those things should be off of there, but recruiters want to do the right thing and may want to hire the right people for the job. And if you’re handing it to them on a silver platter about why they should throw your resume out, putting some things on there that they do not want to know, don’t tell me how old you are, don’t tell me these things, you’re doing more harm than good.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. And there’s, again, the age reveal. Sometimes people will reveal their age without really realizing that they’re doing it. And one of the ways they do it is by using practices that are outdated, using technologies, listing technologies they used 20 years ago that nobody anymore, having an email address @aol.com, come on, you got to ditch that. Use Gmail, it’s free to get a Gmail address. I wouldn’t even use Hotmail or Yahoo anymore.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Well, listen, I tell my clients, Katherine, Gmail takes five pounds off or takes five years off your age and 10 pounds off your hips. That’s what I tell everybody. And so I said, “Get that Gmail today.” Because it does, AOL adds 10 years to your age, right? Gmail, it’s what’s happening, it’s now. Maybe in two years, it’ll be something different. But for today, that’s the one that you should have. And if you have a common name, like if your name’s Cathy Lanzalaco and Katherine Bouglai, or not common names.

So it’s pretty easy, but if you have your name’s John Smith, and you’re applying for it, you’re getting a Gmail account, they’re going to require you to add some numbers to that, to do something different with it. Don’t, don’t, don’t put your birth date in there, your birth year or even the month and the date, recruiters know exactly what that is. And then you’re tipping them off again. So with Google recommends a number, take the Google number, put it in there, keep it simple. The funkier it gets, the more detailed it gets, the more complicated it gets, the more likely someone is to screw it up. So keep it simple and use Gmail, folks.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah, absolutely. And then the other thing I was going to talk about, the graduation dates are no longer required to put the date you graduated. And sometimes if you graduated 2015, 2016, a few years ago, it’s probably, well, how is it hurting you? It’s not, but it will one day. So just as a general practice, to prevent age discrimination, regardless, because you’re not required to do so.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Well, and I’m going to share that. I think it also has the reverse effect with some of the younger job seekers. I agree with you a 100%. So now if I’m working with a new grad and a large part of my business is new grads and college seniors, now let’s say we’re never trying to imply that they have more experience than they do, but we’re putting down the relevant coursework, we’re putting down internships and we will absolutely put down that they’re a new grad, we’ll put down that year, but let’s just say that you’re two years out.

I was working recently with this young man who got internships, worked throughout his entire college career. He is at two huge social media companies right now. He has more experience at 22 years old than some people I know at 40. So when we did his resume, we did not put his year of graduation on there, even though it was only two years ago, because I felt that it would make him look younger than he was and less experienced than he was.

I didn’t want people to focus on the fact that he had been out of school for two years. The reality is he had six years of work experience. And sometimes there can be discrimination against these younger folks too. And it’s really important to be able to play up their skills, just like we’re talking about with our older job seekers.

Katherine Bouglai:

I agree with you. There are some exceptions. For some people, it would make sense to put dates. For example, if they just recently graduated or if they went back to school and then they have a gap and you need to fill that gap. So that’s where you would put it. But I’m talking about in general if it happened five years ago or more, in general, there is no need to put, you’re not required to put it. Let’s just put it this way.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Absolutely. And that also applies, I think we touched on it, but just to make sure that people understand, only to have to go back 15 years max on a resume, maybe 10, depending on what your experience is. Unless it’s a very unique situation. That maybe you’re shifting careers and there was something in your past you needed to bring up, then probably not even chronologically, probably we could create a different section to be able to showcase that at least to get that experience on the resume.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

But people that are carrying around resumes that have 1990s and 1980s, I’ve seen them, resume experience on there. And a lot of times, you’ll see that for somebody that’s been at a company for 25 years, they may have started in the ’90s and now here we are in the 2000s. How do you pick out what’s relevant there? Maybe you’ve worked your way up and had 10 different titles in the time that you’ve been 25 years in an organization. We don’t need to tell them the entry level position from 1991. You just don’t. It’s not relative to the position that you’re looking for now.

So keeping that, not only is that to avoid age discrimination, but that’s just the right thing to do for job relevancy and for the recruiters. They don’t care what you did 15 or 20 years ago. If it doesn’t matter, it’s not directly related to that. So save yourself some space on that as well. And the good rule of thumb is 10 to 15 years max.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. Yeah. And people do care more about what’s relevant. So Cathy, is there anything else that you can think of that’s a big no-no for a resume?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Yeah, well, again, some of the things that I’ve seen are just poor practices. Let’s call out spelling errors, let’s call out grammatical errors too, but spelling errors. And let me just talk a second about spelling errors. I’d be interested in your opinion on this Katherine. Some recruiters will say, well, if you can’t take the care with your resume, then you won’t take your care here at the job and I won’t even talk to you. You risk that. I mean, that’s an absolute situation where you’re not putting your best foot forward. Sometimes recruiters give you some grace on that as long as it’s not full of spelling errors. That’s a whole other issue.

But you should really try to put your best foot forward, your most excellent work to someone. And have somebody else proof it for you, is the formatting all consistent? Do you have periods at the end of your sentences? All these things in and of themselves, one thing is probably not going to matter, but if you’re complicating them and you’re just adding them on top of each other, spelling error here and a formatting problem here.

And when it’s going through the ATS, there’s all kinds of funky stuff in there, you’re just making it harder on the recruiter and you’re doing yourself no favors. So I’d be interested to hear what you have to say too, about the spelling error issue.

Katherine Bouglai:

There are some people for whom it’s very, very important that everything is spelled correctly. And if you’re going to run into one of those people, then yes, your resume is most likely going to end up in that C pile.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Oh, maybe even the D, right?

Katherine Bouglai:

Maybe even the D. And then, of course, there are some people who don’t care. They’ll see like a couple of typos, like, ah, not a big deal, as long as it’s not overwhelming. And you don’t know who is going to read that resume. And I wouldn’t take that risk.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

And you never know who they pass it to. Because let’s face it, more than one person sees that resume. So maybe the first person doesn’t mind, but maybe that’s the recruiter. And then they give it to the hiring manager. And the hiring manager is like, “This is garbage, I don’t want this.” Because they’re the one that has to deal with that person every day. So you just don’t know.

And I’ll tell you, when I work with my clients, I used to think I was excellent at the grammar. I mean, I never misspell a word. I don’t do that, but I used to think I was perfect with my grammar. And then early on in my business, I started using a professional proofreader to read my documents that I give to my clients. Boy, was I in for awakening. As good as I thought I was, I was not as good as she was. And she’s made a huge difference for my clients.

I think that’s, we always should be upping our game on our client’s behalf. And that’s one of the things I invested in years ago. And so all of my resumes are put through my professional proofreader too. You would be surprised at things that you miss. I don’t care if you read a document 10 times, you’re still going to miss a word. You’re still going to misspell something or not have it phrased correctly. If you’re going to make the investment and you’re going to do it, do it right.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. All right. So Cathy, we need to wrap up. And there’s one last thing I wanted to mention. Again, it’s something that people do a lot on the resumes, which brings a red flag. Especially for people who’ve been working at the same company for more than 10 years. They will just mention one company and they’ll describe a big chunk of 10 to 15 years in one job description.

So what we recommend is to break it down to at least three to five year chunks. And what it does, it makes you look like you’ve been growing. You weren’t just doing the same thing for 10 years or 20 years or whatever. But you been growing in your job. Even if you moved to another area or you moved to another location or you joined another team, separate it. Because it makes it look like a job progression, like you were growing. And that looks very attractive on your resume. So any final thoughts on that?

Cathy Lanzalaco:

No, I totally agree with you. It’s strategy. That’s what you’re talking about. Strategy is the name of the game. Everybody’s situation is a little bit different, everyone has an issue that they need to address, not a bad issue in particular, but just how do I best present my information? So it’s really taking that deep dive. And then the last thing I guess I would say is making sure that you edit that resume for every job you apply for. That was not the practice 10 years ago, 15.

But today, if you’re not editing that resume every time for every job application, I don’t care if you’re doing it online or if you’re handing it off to someone. It should always align with that job so that both the ATS can pick up the right keywords, as well as the human reader can know that you’ve created that resume for that job. And they can see when that role. One job or one size doesn’t fit all anymore.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yeah. And they may not be able to tell whether you edited resume or not. And it doesn’t matter as long as they feel like this is the right fit. That’s what you’re going for. All right. I think this is a good time to wrap it up. Before we go on, let’s just talk quickly about how people can find us.

Cathy Lanzalaco:

Okay. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me again. Let me just say that this has been a lot of fun and I appreciate sharing this great ideas. I’m cathy@inspirecareers.com. That is Cathy with a C, and listen, talk about spelling. So that is Cathy with a C, and @inspirecareers.com. Thank you, Katherine.

Katherine Bouglai:

Yes. Thank you. Thank you for being here. And I’m Katherine Bouglai. I’m not even going to spell it, but Katherine with a K, and it’s @blossomcareer.com. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Conversations with Blossom Career. For more information on career transitions, visit my website, blossomcareer.com to find lots of resources on career coaching, resumes, LinkedIn, and more. If you’re interested in exploring what your future career might look like, feel free to schedule a complimentary discovery call with me. I’ll see you next time.