Navigate a Resume Gap with Confidence + Hay There Social Media Transcript
Stacey Delo
Hi, everyone, I am going to launch a poll here as we get kind of let people come in, if you could just answer these questions. While you’re joining us, that would be great. It’ll give us a sense of where everyone is coming from as we let people roll in here.
Good, we have lots of career breakers here. Yay.
Unknown Speaker
Good, good, good. Okay.
Stacey Delo
Well, I’ll leave the poll up. We’ll get started and kind of walk through a few things before we launch into our big session today. So hi there, and welcome and Happy International Women’s Day. It’s certainly wonderful that it happens to fall on this Tuesday, when we do our webinar series where we talk about what is it your turn to do? Are you on a career break and looking to return to work or work for yourself? Are you thinking of heading out on a career break, maybe you’re about to have a baby? Are you looking to level up or position into something new, these sessions are really built for you by our team. So today, we are taking a moment to really celebrate career breaks, I feel like I have to give the jazz hands for career breaks, and the opportunities they present. And we have a really jam packed session. We have Tina and Megan on our team, who will be talking us through how to really position that career break on your resume, but also to talk about it out loud and feel confident about it, which is really the first step. And we’re thrilled to be joined today by one of our favorite collaborators. And that’s Emily hay of hay, there social media, who’s going to I’m going to turn the mic over to her in a little bit. And she’s going to talk about a great way to navigate a career break, which is to work for yourself. So lots of interesting information to talk through today. Okay, I think I’m going to leave the poll up just a bit, but I’m going to get going on our slides. So I’m Stacey Delo. And along with these lovely ladies that you see here, some in the boxes as well on the video screen here and Jordan, who is woman in the chat behind the scenes, we represent a prey career resource for women returning to the workplace after career breaks of all shapes and sizes, or pivoting to something different, new or better. And our mission at apprai is to stop sidelining women talent, we do this through a variety of ways. I can someone tell me if the poll is blocking the slides in the view, I guess you can close it. Once you see it, I just want them I’m gonna close it for myself here. And we do this through three different ways. The first one is through our job board. This is a boutique job board, you are not going to be overwhelmed by the number of opportunities that you search through and find there and get blinded by how much you’re looking at, which happens to me on other job boards. We are working with businesses who are looking to hire from our incredible talent that comes to this job board. Some of the businesses that are working with us right now are listed here on the side. Some of them are job opportunities. Some of them are upskilling, opportunities, training courses of the like, you can search through them. One that I wanted to highlight kind of quickly is the prison journalism project, which is a topic that’s sort of near and dear to my heart run by a former journalist who goes into prisons and trains incarcerated people to become reporters and publishes their stories. They’re looking for a director of development. This is a Chicago based opportunity, but something with a lot of meaning and a really interesting opportunity. Emily will talk about hey there in a minute. We have a sales training program as well. We’ve got returnship programs that are looking for people to apply quickly, especially the Bank of America. One that returnship application is is due March 13, at midnight. So that’s kind of around the corner. So be sure to take a look at our job board and apply. And if you do, let us know that you did.
Also, please join us for our upcoming calendar of events, march 22. We’re talking about transferable skills that will also be led by Tina and Megan, we have special guests from Aspire ship joining us so you can learn more about what they do at that session, April 6, I’m talking with path forward, another group that’s focused on helping women get returned ships in particular and return to the workplace, I’m going to be talking about career changes there. So if you can join us on April 6, there’s a different link, we’ll post it on our website and add it to our newsletter this week, and maybe Jordan will have it in the chat. And then April 25, at 12, they’re going to be talking about five tips to really nail the interview. And that includes informational interviews as well. So that’ll be a really rich session, also run by Tina and Meghan. Okay. And lastly, we do one on one personal coaching, we love working with women who have career breaks, we have been really delighted to see a lot of the women that we’ve been working with get really great jobs with big companies. And their breaks have ranged in size from six months, all the way to 20 years, and I kid you not. So please, if you are in this zone, and you need a little extra one on one help, we’ll be offering a special discount on our resume and LinkedIn review today. So please watch for that in the chat. And also be sure that you’re registered for our newsletters that you can get it there. So I just want to do a little bit of inspiration, before we hand it over to the team here. Um, so obviously, it’s International Women’s Day. And this is a day that we kind of take a pause to celebrate women. We should be celebrating women every day in my opinion. But it is a noted day that everyone takes a minute to celebrate women, I asked my son last night, what he thinks of when he thinks of International Women’s Day, and he said Harriet Tubman. And I thought that’s great. That’s a great example of we celebrate women who have brought us to where we are today. And we celebrate the women of future generations that are going to take us where we need to be and really celebrate their achievements and accomplishments. The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is break the bias, as you can see here. And one of the things that obviously we talk a lot about at our pray is breaking the bias around career breaks. So we thought that this was a great topic for us to be talking about today. One of the things that we’ve seen through the pandemic, which has obviously been so challenging on women, some of the Silver Linings that are coming out of this that point to breaking the bias is the ability to work remotely. LinkedIn said that pre pandemic, they saw about one in 67 jobs that were remote. And today it’s more like one in seven. When I started working in this area of focus, I called the flexibility, I said flexibility was a dirty word to a lot of the companies that we talked with, they literally would fully if we mentioned the word flexibility. And now it is becoming more normalized. And so are career breaks. The great resignation has, of course contributed to this. There are lots and lots of people with career breaks at the moment. And it is normalizing it and one of the big things that we saw last week is that LinkedIn is has added an option on your profile to actually say you took a career break, or you are on a career break. And we did a little bit of digging last week and found that there are even women who are currently working but who have gone back now and put that career break in as a line item on their profile. So all of this is helping to normalize that ebb and flow from the workplace. But what we know, even as it’s normalizing, which is a great thing. Taking a break can be a huge confidence hit for folks. And in that first year that that women I’m going to talk about women right now, but anyone I’m sure we see in that first year, that confidence plummets quickly.
Unfortunately, honestly, investment bankers and lawyers who’ve had big careers suddenly find that they are struggling to remember their value. And so, as I was preparing for this session today, I went back to one of my favorite posts in our inspire section on prey to a post that was written by Johanna buyer, taking a break can be good for your career. And so before I hand it over to Emily and Tina and Meghan, I wanted to share a little bit of what Johanna says in this post, and then you can go and read it for yourselves the whole piece, but she writes, For women returning to work after a career break their biggest fear and Johanne. As a career coach, their biggest fear is appearing like they have nothing professional on their resumes for the last five to 10 years, their self confidence can be low, as well as their trust and being a valuable asset in the workplace. Fear to step into the unknown keeps any new ideas or actions from happening, they feel stuck. While many would see that taking a break from the work is a setback for your career, I see it as a huge positive, and she writes it in all caps. And I agree. When you take a break from your work, it is a chance to see what new gifts and talents you want to come out. And to express themselves. It’s like hitting the pause button to see what else feels interesting, alive and challenging inside of you. When you start to look at your life through this lens of purpose, also known as what would you do if no one else was watching you, you begin to see that you have been growing possibilities for your new career, all the while you’ve been at home. And then she she ends with this quote by Danielle Laporte, an author, your most valuable currency is what comes most naturally to you. So as we get going, I want you to sort of hold all of that in your head, that taking a career break can be extremely valuable to your next steps. And really digging deep to feel that value, so that then you can express it to others, and thinking about what comes naturally to you, as a way as something to lean on, as you make those steps towards reentering the career. So with that I am excited to get going for today, we’re going to have Emily, hey, go ahead and say hello. And she’s going to walk through a few slides and talk about navigating a career break by working for yourself.
Emily A. Hay, Hay There Social Media
Thank you, Stacey. Hey there, everyone. I’m so grateful to have your time. And what a special day to have it on with International Women’s Day. Stacey, you covered the break the bias theme, one of the initiatives of International Women’s Day talks about women choosing progressive employers because where women work can make all the difference. And so I come to this webinar today, with the framework of if you choose a progressive employer, and where you work makes all the difference. Why not choose yourself. So again, at Hey there social media, we empower women to work for themselves. And it has been proving itself as a way for women to either smash their resume gap or provide get themselves in motion and objects in motion stay in motion. So that is what I’ll cover today from Hey, they’re great.
Stacey Delo
And I’ll I’ll mute myself, but just tell me when you need me to advance slides. Okay,
Emily A. Hay, Hay There Social Media
great. So I’ll go ahead, I’ll keep this agenda slide brief if you’d like to go to the next one, Stacy. So this, we call we call our avatar woman, Maria, you know, we call this woman, Marie, because she’s all of us. And I will not spend precious time going through the stats that literally all of you know that she’s session, the great resignation, we are, we’re all presented with an uneven situation right now in the workforce. And so, as Stacey said, a resume gap is not something to shy away from, it’s something to own and lean into. So the next slide here is really just to show you that a resume gap may sound intimidating and damaging. And yes, we’re coming off of a pandemic where many women, many women decided to look for something different. But even last week, during the State of the Union, there aren’t many solutions out there because we can’t look to history and say, Well, what are the new ways women can work for themselves. So at hay their social media, we really cling on to our messaging about having a new recipe for work life integration. So when I refer to Hey, they’re having a new recipe to share with you. Our recipe involves using social media marketing as a way to work for yourself. So the next slide here please. So this again, I just want to bring you ladies in again I am preaching to the choir, but this better recipe provides a proactive approach to get over the fear of having a gun up, maybe to eliminate the gap reduce the gap or like I said, just stop the gap altogether. We are our new recipe definitely allows women to earn a full professional income and allow them to be professionally fulfilled using their talents. Work Life integration, we really claim to that we do not believe in work life balance doesn’t seem to work. Work Life integration is the way that we have found success. And really, we look at self employment as a way to manage workforce reentry on your own terms. So today, when I say you know, avoiding a resume gap, it’s it’s an interesting word to use, you know, avoid it, we position it, smash the gap. By doing social media marketing work for yourself on a freelance basis, that is a proven way that like I said, our team has been able to work for ourselves, we train women how to become social media managers, so that they too can become viably self employed. And that is the entire purpose of our company today. We position Hey there as a unique training company that empowers women to work for themselves as social media managers. Take the next slide here, I think I have some animation floating around there. So in a nutshell, ladies, I will to make sure everyone’s on the same page with the definition, I often get the I didn’t know that was the thing like what do you mean, being a social media manager. So what we’re referring to is businesses, I’ll say small to medium sized businesses will hire you to do their social media marketing. So that can be a very comprehensive scope of work, where you are creating their content and managing other social networks. Maybe you’re responding to reviews, it’s really quite endless, what can fall under social media marketing, but like I said, it’s that core function that a business needs help with, and they will outsource it to you. So if they outsource to you, they are your client, you’re now working for yourself. And as I mentioned, not only are there a wide range of services, there are many avenues to work. So you might have your own clients, you might subcontract other under an agency that simply can expand their team by having you be a member of that team.
Thank you. So why we feel this is a great industry to work in. First of all, it’s social media marketing, marketing, in general, great field in demand field. But we have not seen it hurt anyone to say they know how to do social media marketing. So in demand space, it’s truly flexible work with the whole movement of working from home. And just because you can work from home does that really mean it’s flexible work, we’ve heard some people feel that it’s even more demanding when they’re working from home. With social media, it really is flexible, because it can be done on your time. Yes, there are always occasions that require maybe an in the moment attention. But generally, social media can be done on your own time. And time zones don’t even matter if your client works in a different time zone. A ramping up or down what I would say there is social media marketing allows you to take on more or less work based on your bandwidth. So depending on your season of motherhood, depending on if it’s a quiet time in your life where you know, you can take on some extra work, it’s it’s very flexible in that sense. And we can have a whole session about setting your rates. But with social media marketing, like many freelance options, you do have the ability to set your own rates. So while there isn’t necessarily a set rate sheet that we all can follow, it does give you the ability to increase your pricing as your professional skills increase and your experience level changes to. Thank you. So this slide here is just to again, point out to you how big the social media marketing industry is, businesses all need it. This is not new news to any of you that businesses must be on social. This stat is just crazy to think that 95% of small businesses experienced failure in some way shape or form on social media. So what I’d like to point out with this slide is that we women as the key influencers and the decision makers in our homes, on what services and products to purchase, who better for a business to have as their social media manager than a member of their target audience. Thank you.
Tina Mondragon
So this slide here again, I
Emily A. Hay, Hay There Social Media
I feel like I’m in the nest, the osprey nest We love everything about our prey. We love the women we’ve met through our prey. And we’ve been doing this work long enough to see some women that literally medicine webinars, through our pray made their way to hate their social media enrolled in our program. I learned everything to be able to do this social media marketing work that, as I said, they, in their words, you know, they no longer had a resume gap. This woman in particular has been with us since Gosh, October 2020. And it’s really exciting to have been doing this long enough to see that it’s working. Some theory, this woman in particular that met us through apprai, she she had a self proclaimed gap. Now she has closed that gap by doing social media on a freelance basis. And she actually has her sister working with her, I call them the sister printers. So the opportunities are really even hard to see yourself before you even get going in social media. Thank you so much. So this next slide. So the previous one happy to share the offer. The previous slide just really gives you the nuts and bolts we call our social media program. It’s the hater, social media insider program, we felt like trainees felt too limiting and grads felt to final. Because what we do when you become a hater, social media insider, you get your core training, you get to work on real client projects that will build your portfolio access to experts that is our team. So I feel very firmly about not filling the world with lonely freelancers who work on an island and have no sounding board or no one to ask things up. So that’s a part of our community of insiders, the opportunity to meet potential clients. So again, in the spirit of making sure that this is working, we will naturally bring one of the perks is to bring referrals and bring leads to the women that have gone through our program. It’s how we put our money where our mouth is. And we say that these women are very well equipped to do social media marketing. And so that is part of our program as well. And again, the insider’s community is just letting you know that you will be similar phases and stages of your self employment or entrepreneurial journey as the other women that have gone through this program. So you will be a part of the insider community as soon as you work with Hey there. The next slide here as I wrap up, so I just would like to point out that this, this is something that is a tuition based program. So maybe a nuts and bolts detail, we work, our core training over six weeks, there’s 12, Zoom sessions, all of this information is spelled out on the website. So I’ll spare you the details today. But the tuition is something that we’re offering a discount on for our prey members, for anyone on this webinar. And we are making it a time sensitive offer because a we haven’t offered a discount code outside of the upgrade community before. And also we want to celebrate International Women’s Day. So if you head to our website of Hey there social media.com. And you simply schedule a call, there’s a place you can send us an email, reach out to us connect with us. And I’m happy to speak with you or a member of our team. Well. And if this is something that you feel like really, you’re in the right place at the right time to do we’ll give you a $250 discount this week. Did I leave anything out,
Stacey Delo
Susie? So I think one thing to mention is that the course is can you talk a little bit about the structure of it, that they’re not cohorts, you can join any time?
Emily A. Hay, Hay There Social Media
Sure. Thanks, Stacy. So with our program, I call it the core training. So those 12 modules make up poor training. And we have designed that content to be delivered whenever works for you. And what I mean by that is, I teach live twice a week on zoom at different times, so that if you were ready to do this, you don’t have to wait for a new cohort to start and say May or August, etc. So this this enrollment change we made is just to simply allow women to meet us where they are. And so if you move into doing core training, you literally could start next week, anytime merge into existing classes.
Stacey Delo
And is there any base level of skill that you’re looking for? does somebody need to be familiar with graphic design or photography, or I’m just thinking out loud about?
Emily A. Hay, Hay There Social Media
Sure. That’s a great question. One of the things we lead with when we talk about doing social media is are you social media savvy? That doesn’t mean you need to be on all the socials, it doesn’t mean you need to have 1000s of followers. But do you have an Instagram account? Are you in some Facebook groups? Do you have a LinkedIn profile? So we’ll often call that just having a working knowledge of social media. Anything can be built upon and believe it or not, social media marketing is still a new enough industry that we’re all learning. So we generally will say for women that are asking, am I a fit for this? We say what do you consider yourself having a social media working knowledge. And then the second thing, Stacy would be, are you a clear communicator, ultimately, if you are being hired by businesses to run their social networks, you are writing their posts, and you are making their images. And so you have to come across clearly in writing for those posts. So women with backgrounds in marketing, PR, communications, customer service writers themselves, if you feel like again, you don’t have to be a full length, author. But someone that can clearly articulate and get creative in written form, that’s a great asset to have in order to be a strong social media manager.
Stacey Delo
Definitely I what I love about the social media marketing business that you’re teaching people to start is that, it’s really a nice way to if you’re already kind of a natural networker in your community, it’s a great way to take that to a different level. And also to get to know more of the small businesses potentially in your area. It just has a lot of nice, different legs to it, I guess. In addition to a really great business opportunity.
Emily A. Hay, Hay There Social Media
Thanks, JC Yeah, that’s something too that we’ve seen. Again, there’s no shortage of businesses that need help with this. And often when you really start thinking about the businesses, you drive by every day, that maybe you have someone in your family that owns a local restaurant. I mean, there are so many businesses that need help in this space that you’re exactly right, that you can say, Well, I’m really interested in maybe consumer products or maternity related. I mean, there’s so many niches buy plenty of opportunity in all industries. Yeah.
Stacey Delo
Well, it’s very exciting. I know Jordan is going to put a link to your site, which is the best place to get started. Everyone should keep in mind the deadline on this discount code. And Emily, thanks again, so much for being with us today. It was very, we were really honored to have you on International Women’s Day with us.
Unknown Speaker
Thank you for sharing it with me.
Stacey Delo
Absolutely. Okay, on to getting to work on positioning a gap and really talking about it and feeling confident about it. I’m gonna pass it off here to Megan and Tina on our team, their coaches, they work a lot with women who have taken breaks and who are thinking about what’s next for themselves. Please, if you have questions, let’s put them in the q&a. It’s easier for us to keep track of them. We’ll take a few questions at the end. And with that, I’ll hand it over to you too. Thanks so much.
Tina Mondragon
Yeah, thank you, Emily. Hi, everybody. Happy International Day, International Women’s Day, we’re so glad to have you all here. I loved what Emily had to present to our community. I just keep reading, that social media skills are hot. It’s what a lot of recruiters are looking for these days. And a lot of businesses have had to pivot the way they work because of COVID that they’re relying a lot more on social media. So I think her timing with this was just great to put that out there. And I’m excited to talk to you Megan and I are excited to talk to you guys on how to navigate a break. On your route resume, we’ve got a couple of tips that will show you today. Taking a career pause is normal. There are times when people need to be doing something else other than working. And it’s a normal thing to take a pause in your career. So you might be wondering how to address that your time off from work on your resume, and we’re going to show you a few strategies. So number one is own your gap. Have confidence about your skills and bring it back to the job at hand. You can position strong volunteer positions as work experience on your resume. You just highlight those volunteer experiences, list them as you would jobs, including your title, the company name, the description, the job description of what you did, in bullet points on your resume the the dates that you were there. If you took a class, you can include that on your education section of your resume. But by filling the employment gap, you’ll show recruiters that you are proactive, you’re a lifelong learner. You can also remove months from your employment dates on your resume and just include the years so it’s makes the gap less obvious on your resume. Incorporate key skills strengths, accomplishments, from your volunteer roles and from your past work experience. This will help recruiters understand how you can contribute to the company. So read the top job description to learn keywords of what they’re looking for. And then you weave those into your resume. And emphasize any upskilling new skills you’ve acquired during your career break. Recruiters, as I mentioned, they really want the evidence of being a lifelong learner. So show on your resume, how this break was an opportunity for you to be learning new things related to your profession.
Megan Strickland
Great, okay, our second tip for how to deal with a gap on your resume. So reframe your resume with new skills you’ve learned during your time out of the paid workforce. So as Tina mentioned, volunteering can be just as valuable as paid work. I recently worked with a woman who she had been out of the paid workforce for about 10 years. And during that time, she volunteered in several capacities. And one of them was she ran the annual, you know, big fundraising event for her children’s schools, a huge event, she dealt with all the vendors. So she, we she really focused on that work on her resume. And she just landed a full time job as an event planner at this very high end, sort of outdoor mall experience here in California. So, I mean, she had 20 years of work experience prior to that, where she was getting a paycheck. But because of how she positioned that specific volunteer role on her resume, she was able to land a job. So volunteer work is incredibly valuable, especially if you’re looking to maybe pivot to a new role. So as Tina mentioned, just you know, any, if you raise $200,000, for your school, make sure to highlight that because that is a key achievement that you helped contribute. And again, match the skills to the job description. So really focus on any skills in that volunteer role that are applicable to the job you’re applying for. And volunteering is also a great way to continue to network and meet people in different fields and different industries. So it’s a very huge, hugely valuable tool to consider on your resume as you’re looking to reenter the paid workforce.
Tina Mondragon
Yep. And to add to that, what I another what Megan said, is, is all really important about volunteering, and also, it keeps you current when you’re volunteering, and it keeps you involved. You know, as Megan was saying, you’re networking, you’re meeting people, but also you’re taking on it kind of puts you in that work mode, you’ve got deadlines, you’ve got projects you’re working on, and it feels good. It’s a positive experience volunteering, it’s something you can talk about on your resume. So I think that can be really important if you’re looking for something to do or to add to your resume during that, that pause or that gap.
Okay, so our tip number three is build your confidence. Remember to focus on what you can do in the role. And that’s what you want to be talking about in the summary statement on your resume, not if you’ve actually done it. But if you can do the job, you can talk about all the great skills that you bring to the role and ways to do that is you can put in your summary statement that you are ideally suited to, or your goal is to or you’re qualified to so you could talk about all if it was volunteering, that you did all of the incredible skills that you learned volunteering, your project management skills, or your event planning skills make you ideally suited to blah, blah, blah role that you’re applying to at that company. That’s how you word that on your resume. Lots of employers are struggling to fill their open positions, so they’re less likely to get hung up on your employment status. So you want to show them on your resume, why you are a good fit for that role. And just bring up Why tell them why you are what skills you have that you bring to that role, why you’re a good fit for that role.
Megan Strickland
Okay, our fourth tip is to identify your soft skills. We have had so many conversations over the last two years with recruiters who these skills they’ve always been important, but they’re becoming more and more important and recruiters are really looking for people with these skills. So you for sure I’m sure almost all of you have these skills and they’re hugely crucial in this hybrid work from home constantly evolving workforce, to have these skills that you know If you if you ran a household or if you help care for elderly parents, you continued to grow these skills. So reliability, communication, independence, collaboration, organization, problem solving is a really big one, conflict resolution being a self starter. So if if any of these are a in the job description that you’re looking to apply for or be something that you feel you possess, make sure to weave these into your resume.
Tina Mondragon
Okay, so understanding your transferable skills, what are transferable skills, transferable skills are your talents, and abilities, skills that you have learned throughout your life that are useful in your job, your career path, they can be acquired through previous employment, through school, through volunteer work, through internships, through hobbies, just through a variety of things that you’ve picked up the skills along the way, whether you’ve stayed in the same career field for decades, or you’ve hopped around, you’ve likely developed some pretty amazing skills. And some of these skills can be job specific, like learning how to the hard skills you need, how to learn, use certain technical tools. But others are more transferable like you’re a multitasker, you’ve got creativity, you’re great at communications, you are great at teamwork and event planning and leadership. These are skills that can be very successful in a lot of careers. So you think of these skills as part of your tool belt, your career tool belt that you are bringing to the table, no matter what you learned at a job five years ago, 10 years ago, these are transferable skills that you can bring to a role. It’s the key to being successful in a wide range of jobs and industries. They are yours to keep, nobody can take these skills away from you. It’s what you bring to the table for the job. So you are constantly accumulating transferable skills, these skills go with you from job to job. Why are they important because you use them in every single job, no matter the field of the job. They’re very versatile. Employers want employees who can do multiple things, and feel fill different roles at companies. When you have skills, you can apply them to a wide variety of things that employers are looking for. And they often cannot be taught a lot of these skills or soft skills, you already have these skills, you’ve learned them everywhere you’ve learned them. As I said, at life at home at work, as long as you can figure out how to sell them to the hiring manager, you’ll be in a good position, they can grow your career, they could be the secret sauce to landing your next job. They want. Employers are looking for candidates who have experience and skills. And it’s a great way to show that you can do the job at hand. So you know, keep an open mind when job searching for potential opportunities and opportunities might be able to present themselves be flexible, you never know when an opportunity could be there.
Stacey Delo
We’re gonna be talking more about transferable skills in two weeks. But I think one of the things maybe you all could talk about is where to put those on a resume or LinkedIn profile. And how to sort of weave them one of the questions that we’re getting is, you know, if you can’t add the caregiving that you’ve been doing is like a line item. How do you take out the skills that you’ve gleaned from that experience and put it where do you put it? In a resume? It’s one thing to write about it in a in a note via email or your summary statement. But where can we call it out?
Tina Mondragon
Well, I think an important place to always start with a resume is to look at the job description. And take out a highlighter and you want to highlight the key words that they’re looking for in that job description. And then you’ve written down all of your transferable skills as well on another sheet of paper. And so you’re looking at what the recruiter is looking for and what you’ve got. And then you’re going to weave these words into your resume these words that you already know that recruiters looking for these great transferable skills that you have, that you’re going to show them on your resume that you have these skills. That’s a great place to start with, with putting these on there. And then we did talk about in the summary statement, you can say these great skills that you have you’re ideally suited to do this role at this company. So these skills that you’ve picked up, communications or project management or multitasking The skills that you picked up have ideally suited you to this role that you’re applying to as well.
Stacey Delo
Empathy. One, one thing that we heard from the Bank of America, hiring managers a couple weeks ago was actually to go ahead and list those at the top of your resume. All of those words that Tina was just calling out, you can weave them into descriptions of, of a job, maybe not the title, but job descriptions. But you can also just at the very top of your resume, have a short list of your skills. And those can include these softer transferable skills. Yep,
Tina Mondragon
the more relevant skills that you can pull out that you have, with the match in the job description. puts you in a better place to get that interviewer to that next level at the company.
Stacey Delo
Yeah, yeah, just right at the top. And I think we’ve answered a couple of the questions. We are, again, talking about these transferable skills, we keep hearing from employers how important these are, because they cannot be, they’re more difficult to train. They know that they can train you in the specific skill that they need you to be able to do. But they Tina mentioned this in her slide, but they they really can’t teach. It’s hard to teach empathy and things like that. So this can be your secret sauce, and you just need to figure out how to how to position it and get it out there. I don’t know if we have any more questions in the chat. Does anyone else have any more questions before we? Here we go,
Tina Mondragon
I was just gonna bring up that, you know, right now there are millions of people out of the workforce. So a gap is it’s very normal right now. And workers are looking for good employees and flexibility, you know, from their employees. So if a hiring manager views your gap, as a negative, it might signal that the company’s not right for you. The interviewing is a two way street, and you want to work for an employee who understands your worth. And I think now more than ever, this break, you just own it, because a lot of people have had this out there, and just go for it.
Stacey Delo
Mm hmm. Yeah, I think that’s a really great, great point. There’s one question in the q&a
that, you know, if you’re, it’s basically sounds like, I don’t I I don’t think this to me, the question that Tanya is asking about, not employers not considering people over the age of 45, or 50, for entry level positions, is technically age discrimination. So I don’t think that that should be a concern. I think sometimes that what you what you encounter is that you’re, you peep employers will look at you and say you’re too experienced for this entry level position. And that becomes, you know, needing to talk them into why you’re interested in that entry level position. I don’t know if that answers your question. Exactly.
Do you want to just talk this one through really quickly? Ladies, if you have an interview? How do you explain that you took a 10 year gap after your children were born?
Megan Strickland
I think you’ve just answered it very honestly, very succinctly don’t I mean, if you if you if the 10 year gap was because you were home raising children, you just tell them that and now you’re ready to get back into the workforce for x y&z and here’s why this job is really exciting. Or if you are home caring for elderly parents, you don’t need to go into a whole lot of specific detail, but just address it. Tell them now why now is the time you’re ready to get back in and what about this job? You feel connected to? Yeah.
Stacey Delo
Yeah. And and, and Megan’s point is you want to keep it brief. It’s not the focus. The the break has already happened. The break could be for I mean, trust me, we talk to people who take breaks for a good zillion different reasons and you You want to be brief about why you don’t you know what it was? And maybe why, if it’s relevant, and then you want to just move into focusing on what it is why you’re there today, there’s something that’s pulling you to this moment and you want to focus on that. Why are you talking to them today, you’re talking to them today, because you are really excited to focus on X, Y, and Z. So we have a question about whether you put a parent in your title caregiver, you know, this LinkedIn profile actually has a number of options that you can choose from. And, you know, honestly, even before they launched this splash of saying that they were going to add it to the profile, people have been doing this across LinkedIn, and different forms. And it really comes down to kind of what you’re comfortable with. You know, we’re talking a lot, we don’t necessarily recommend that you put that on a resume, um, LinkedIn, the profile is a lot more flexible and fungible. And so I don’t know, we’re sort of we we’ve been trying to think that through a little bit. But what Megan and Tina have said really well here is that they recommend instead, really thinking about the experiences that you have had during those years as a volunteer. And using that as your title, and then really thinking about how you show the growth of something that you did. So Megan mentioned, maybe you were the head of the parent association, and you had some big fundraiser, you want to talk about how, you know, you, you, the budget went from 30,000 to 100,000. Under your leadership, you want to be able to point to those things, if you can, it’s also a great note for people who may be considering going out on a break to really be strategic in their volunteer work, so that you can show those make those connections for people, one group that we recommend, if you’re looking for something to kind of put on your resume is catch a fire, they look for, they they place people in, in really strategic volunteering opportunities. We love them also, because it’s a great way to kind of try on new roles. So you can go and they work with organizations, nonprofit organizations that need generally business skills of some kind. And you can do a project with one of their organizations and see if you like project management, see, if you enjoy development, it’s a great, great organization to just kind of take a look around and then give you something to put on your resume if you’re looking for those. And they’re real
Megan Strickland
skills, and they interview you like a real candidate. I think strategic volunteering is so important. I always think about that. Now I have small kids. So you know, they especially now that things are opening, you know, you can be asked to volunteer for a million different things, but thinking through like, what skills am I actually going to learn from this? And am I going to enjoy this? Yeah. Yeah.
Tina Mondragon
If you haven’t been volunteering, if you’ve been taking upskilling classes, you can talk about or highlight those as well. You know, during this time, I’ve been learning all of these incredible skills that I can bring to the job at hand. Yeah.
Stacey Delo
And this there’s a question in the chat about mentioning fundraising, add for events, like even foot races and challenges and that kind of thing. And it’s absolutely it took organization, you had to get people there, you had to raise money. Think about it in those terms and position it like that. And this isn’t us just saying this. I want to say we had the the hire if you haven’t watched the session with the Bank of America hiring managers. It was an excellent session because they said put your volunteering on your resume as as if it were a job. And I think that that’s one message that just doesn’t get out there enough. That you know, the world moves through volunteering in many ways, and women are are a big piece of that. And so please, please take value and stuck in that work that you’ve been doing. And treat it. Importantly, because it is important work.
Unknown Speaker
If the i If it’s okay, I just to chime in with one overarching statement, as I’m listening to this amazing wisdom you’re giving, whether you are coming from caregiving, or volunteering or self employment, one of the things that women overlook is that they don’t need all the answers to get going. And that’s something to highlight for an employer that I not only are you a self starter, but you’re willing to say yes, without all the answers, you don’t have a playbook as a caregiver. If you’re running a volunteer organization, there’s no one to train you. And so just the fact that you can’t teach that initiative, and if you highlight that for a potential employer, that’s really important for them to see that I can teach her anything, but I can’t teach her the drive. So it’s something I think everyone should point out.
Stacey Delo
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, I think that we’ll probably leave it there. If you have more specific questions for Tina and Meghan on our team, please reach out. And, you know, each person’s pause is different, right. And what they’re really good at is listening to what yours is, and what your specific needs are, and then tailoring it to really button itself up for whatever it is that you’re looking to do. And please consider Emily’s program, as as an option for that next phase of your career, it’s working for yourself is a fantastic way to just sort of blow a gap out of the water, it really doesn’t matter. And you get to take all of these skills that we’ve just really highlighted for you, and put them to work for yourself. And you’ve already been doing that as a caregiver. And so why not use it as a way to make money for yourself as well. I think with that we’re going to, we will set we will follow up in an email for everybody with the information for the discount code with Emily as well as a discount code for today. I’m really, really thank all of you for being here with us on International Women’s Day. You know, the main reason that we’re here is because of all of you all who come to these sessions. They’re important to us. They’re meaningful to us. And if there’s one thing that you do for yourself today, please, please take a minute to celebrate yourself. You’ve you’ve gotten to this point, it’s two years into this craziness that we’ve been experiencing. It’s hopefully almost over here. But you’re here and you’re putting in the work and it’s going to pay off. So thank you so much and we will see you in a couple weeks. Thanks, Tina. Meghan. Thanks, Emily. Thanks, Jordan. Okay,
Megan Strickland
bye hell. Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
