In this week’s episode of Careers and Coffee, Liz and Dan go over a live job posting on Corridor Careers, and how to tailor your resume/cover letter to match the job posting.  Are you ready to re-enter the workforce this fall?  Now is the time to start looking for your next job.  Gary Vee says that the most important thing that employers will be looking for in the coming years is emotional intelligence – make sure you are ready when you get that first interview!

 

Full Transcript:

Dan Holterhaus 0:02
All right. Good morning, Liz.

Unknown Speaker 0:04
Good morning.

Dan Holterhaus 0:05
How’s it going today?

Liz Kennedy 0:06
Good. How are you?

Dan Holterhaus 0:07
Not too bad. I got some tea going. I had a couple cups of coffee this morning. But on the tea now

Liz Kennedy 0:16
I’ve switched to decaf. But so rockin the coffee. So.

Dan Holterhaus 0:22
Okay, right on. There we go. So we are at July 15. Now part of believe summer is kind of like halfway over? No, it’s going by really fast. I mean, I know for you with with three kids are, you know, they’re probably not ready to go back to school yet. But you know, we’re moving in that direction.

Liz Kennedy 0:42
You know, they saw the back to school flyers from Target and they’re like, no. So if you have you have kids, and you’re thinking about that back to school. I mean, pair that back to school with back to a job. If you if you’re looking at securing work for the fall after things settle down. Your kids are back in school, now’s the time to be really starting your job search, because it’s gonna take you a while. I mean, it just is. Even though it’s a job seekers market right now. It can take a little while to find the right fit for you. So it’s a good time to dip the toe in.

Dan Holterhaus 1:19
Yeah, absolutely. And let’s talk a little bit about what’s going on in our local job market here. I mean, we have 400, I think it’s 434 jobs on Corridor Careers right now. So there’s a plethora of jobs out there. Tons of employers looking to hire, it is a job seekers market. And I’ve noticed a couple other things going on, throughout this whole, you know, stay at work from home pandemic thing. And I’ve actually had a couple friends that were working locally. And they have now transitioned and started working for companies 100% remotely, but the companies are based in other other states. So I think we what I’m seeing is we have a very talented workforce here in Eastern Iowa, people, employers from other areas are recognizing that. And sure enough, like they’re, they’re dipping in and you know, I don’t want to say stealing, but they’re, they’re finding opportunity in our market, which is creating even even more job opportunities for local candidates.

Liz Kennedy 2:28
Right, because those jobs still exist that your friends were working at right here in the market. So if you are tired of working from home, and want to get back into a, you know, some kind of semblance of a normal, where you’re, you know, you’re visiting a workplace every at least every once in a while, you know, you’re gonna want to work locally, somewhere.

Dan Holterhaus 2:51
Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, let’s, we’re gonna do something kind of unique here. We’re going to talk about transferable skills are just, we’re gonna, we’re gonna take a look at a job that’s on quarter careers right now. And we’re gonna just kind of go over the bullet points of it and talk about what are some of the skills that might be needed for for a job for this job. So given that job was with that,

Liz Kennedy 3:23
so we’re going to talk about our friends at Medirevv here, Medirevv is a local company in Coralville. And they are a longtime partner of quarter careers, posting their jobs attending our career fairs, usually, and, and so this administrative coordinator, I just thought was a good example of, you know, help help you understand, okay, why are skills in a resume important? And I just know this, because I recently hired someone and reviewing the skills that usually are at the top of a resume. You know, like after you’ve given your kind of spiel of who you are and what your objective is, sometimes there’ll be like a skill summary at the top, that is extremely useful to a hiring manager, who is poring through various resumes trying to determine like, Who should I interview? And so, you know, you might think to yourself, Well, what do I put in there? I mean, I have lots of skills, but what are ones that are relevant to an employer, and the employer will tell you what skills are relevant to them. So you can generally just read through the job description and try to highlight things that would pop out like as a keyword. So for instance, this this role of an administrative coordinator, they’re looking for someone who has experience with setting appointments. So calendar appoint, setting appointments is a skill that you could put as a skill in your skill summary. They’re also looking for someone who is good on the phone, you know, has good communication skills. So would highlight those patient nation skills Yeah, like they’ve mentioned before. Like many, many times in this, so that should clue you like, okay, coordination is really important. Obviously, it’s in the job title, but I should include that as a keyword in my skills, maybe, because it’ll help you stand out. And then they even have like a knowledge skills and abilities section with some, some job descriptions do not have, they just don’t have this. But these guys do. And so you can see here they’re looking for experience. So you’ll want to make sure that if you have work history that includes two to three years of prior experience, that you’re kind of bringing that to the top of your resume, you know, your job history doesn’t necessarily have to be chronological, it, it’s helpful sometimes if it is especially like, what are you currently doing. But if what you’re currently doing is not relevant to the job that you’re seeking, it’s okay for you to kind of highlight the jobs that are so that you can show that you have the experience that they’re looking for. And then they specifically call out Microsoft Office Suite products. So I would just mirror their, their, their wording on this, you could say Microsoft Excel as a skill or Microsoft Office or office 365 as a skill set, they’re going to recognize that that is what they’re talking about. And then interpersonal skills and communication skills. Pleasant phone manner is a good one that I’ve seen, like, that’s I always see that that kind of strikes me like, okay, they’re aware of how they are on the phone. And they’re they’re promising that they they have a good phone manner. And so those are key things that you might want to include in that skill section just for this type of job.

Dan Holterhaus 6:29
Yeah, absolutely. And I saw a lot of attention to detail, obviously, you know, being being able to stay organized, stay on task, be friendly, like you said, wasn’t phone man or all those like things that many rebels looking for, and that admin coordinator position?

Liz Kennedy 6:46
And what employer would be looking for those skills. I mean, those are just kind of universal skills, right. And they’re sometimes called soft skills and soft skills can be a little bit confusing to job seekers, I think like, what is a soft skill? Because there are things that you might not necessarily recognize about yourself, and think worthy of putting in a resume. Like, if you’re friendly, like, why would I put friendly in a resume? It’s not a skill? Well, it is a skill, you know, like being pleasant. And having a good attitude. I’ve seen that in resumes sometimes, too. And it’s like, oh, cool. They’re, they’re recognizing that that’s an important thing to know how to do. And they put it in their resume that makes me feel good as a hiring manager, like, Okay, well, they state that they have a good attitude. We’ll see in the interview, if they actually do, but at least they are recognizing that that is something that’s important to employers.

Dan Holterhaus 7:37
Yeah, I agree. 100% I think it was a just pre pandemic, actually something in like, early last year, Gary Vaynerchuk, he did a presentation and he was talking about the most valuable skills that are needed in the workforce now. And his number one thing was emotional intelligence as well as, as basically the same as saying, you have to have a good personality, right? Like you can’t, you can’t be Debbie Downer at the office and expect to get a job like you have to, you know, be positive, have a good attitude. Right. And, you know, you, you basically in the in the office are going to get treated, how you treat other people. You know, if you show up and have a good attitude at work, and are smiling, you’re probably going to get that same thing back from, from your fellow co workers and you’re going to be in, especially during the interview process have a better chance of getting job.

Liz Kennedy 8:36
Yeah. And I think, you know, there’s always gonna be bad days, right? You’re always gonna have a bad day occasionally. And that’s okay. But especially in the interview process, that’s really your opportunity to showcase your best. Best, okay? Because you know, the interview, it’s stuff like, as a hiring manager, you always want to give, I always want to give the other candidate the benefit of the doubt, especially because I know they’re putting themselves out there. But not every hiring manager has the same attitude that I have. And really, you’re going to be your best if you just kind of prep yourself up. So let’s just say you’ve got to have that, like, what do you call it, I’m gonna have that pep talk beforehand, you know, that locker room, talk with yourself before you get into the interview. And that interview is probably going to take place over something like this, right? Like, it’s probably going to be a zoom. So check your background. You know, make sure you get a clean shirt on. And, you know, get yourself ready practice. You know, like, if you’re going to do a zoom interview, and you’ve never done one before, call your friend on Facebook portal or something like like or you know, do a do a FaceTime with somebody and just say, Hey, I just want to practice how I look when I’m on a screen. And, you know, they can give you some tips and help you understand, hey, you’re always slouching or, you know, you got some weird thing behind You that you’re not even aware of

Dan Holterhaus 10:03
those things don’t just,

Liz Kennedy 10:04
you know, they’re just gonna get in your way. And they have nothing to do with your skills as a person, you know, as a worker, but they’re just those things because we’re not professional job seekers, you know, we forget about.

Dan Holterhaus 10:19
Yeah, I couldn’t even tell, like, looking at you right now, through our zoom meeting, you know, you’re sitting, you know, upright, and I kind of have my arms folded in front of me, but as a job seeker, like, if I was like this, you know, back in my chair, like it just, you know, there’s, there’s a different feeling. So, I’m good things to pay attention to.

Liz Kennedy 10:39
Yeah, and we in our check out our YouTube, because we do, I do link to a couple of playlists for like, zoom interview tips, you know, things like that. One of the things is, they recommend getting a sticky note and putting your top points that you want to get through on your interview, and then sticking it on the screen. So that you look at that, instead of like yourself, because like, right now I’m looking at myself, you know, or, you know, if you, you know, gotta remind yourself, hey, look at the camera, because that’s giving eye contact to the other person, which is really, you know, it’s a kind of an actor tip, you know, because none of us, I mean, most of us are not actors and not used to looking at a camera. So, those things, so there’s great resources on YouTube about how to kind of trick yourself into doing the right thing and a zoom interview, but I wouldn’t get so caught up in that, like, if you’re just a human being, you know, and you like, kind of pay attention to like, Okay, if I was going to meet with somebody in person, this is how I would look. This is how I present myself, you kind of just kind of have that same attitude over zoom. I think you’d be fine. Yeah.

Dan Holterhaus 11:42
Absolutely. All right. That was really good Liz. Lots of lots of little nuggets in there. I really like that. Any parting words before we sign off for this edition of careers and coffee?

Liz Kennedy 11:56
No, I think I think for the next few editions of careers and copper, we’re just gonna hammer home some of the basics because, you know, it’s just so easy to lose those basics of like, Oh, yeah, this is how resumes work. Oh, yeah. This is how an interview tip. This is some interview tips. So we’re trying to cover some of those things in the coming ones. Get you guys ready to interview You know, to get that job before fall cause we really want to see you You know, living your best life by November, right.

Dan Holterhaus 12:21
There we go. I like it. All right Liz, Thanks a lot. Until next time.

Liz Kennedy 12:28
Peace out. Drink more coffee.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai