Ready to make your resume shine after a career break? Join me as I guide Charity, a dedicated mom, through a live resume makeover session. We'll focus on practical strategies for overcoming an employment gap. From emphasizing relevant job titles to showcasing technical skills, this episode is packed with actionable advice tailored for career returners. Charity's unique background in higher education and banking provides the perfect backdrop for our discussion, making this episode especially valuable for those navigating similar transitions.
Have you ever wondered how to make your resume stand out in a crowded job market? Learn how to optimize your resume for ATS and tailor it to match job postings effectively. This episode also covers the art of integrating career breaks seamlessly with other professional experiences, ensuring your resume paints a complete picture of your qualifications and capabilities.
Interested in having your resume reviewed by an HR pro? Reach out to Christina at christina@hernextchapters.com to take advantage of a special discount for listeners. And be sure to grab the customizable resume template to kickstart your journey back into the workforce. Listen, learn, and transform your resume today!
Grab a Free Resume Template for Stay at Home Moms.
Interested in my 1:1 Career Comeback Coaching program? Let's chat!
Send me an email ---> christina@hernextchapters.com
Connect with me on LinkedIn ---> www.linkedin.com/in/kohlchristina
Ready to make your resume shine after a career break? Join me as I guide Charity, a dedicated mom, through a live resume makeover session. We'll focus on practical strategies for overcoming an employment gap. From emphasizing relevant job titles to showcasing technical skills, this episode is packed with actionable advice tailored for career returners. Charity's unique background in higher education and banking provides the perfect backdrop for our discussion, making this episode especially valuable for those navigating similar transitions.
Have you ever wondered how to make your resume stand out in a crowded job market? Learn how to optimize your resume for ATS and tailor it to match job postings effectively. This episode also covers the art of integrating career breaks seamlessly with other professional experiences, ensuring your resume paints a complete picture of your qualifications and capabilities.
Interested in having your resume reviewed by an HR pro? Reach out to Christina at christina@hernextchapters.com to take advantage of a special discount for listeners. And be sure to grab the customizable resume template to kickstart your journey back into the workforce. Listen, learn, and transform your resume today!
Grab a Free Resume Template for Stay at Home Moms.
Interested in my 1:1 Career Comeback Coaching program? Let's chat!
Send me an email ---> christina@hernextchapters.com
Connect with me on LinkedIn ---> www.linkedin.com/in/kohlchristina
Hi and welcome to Her Next Chapter's podcast. I'm your host, C christina Kohl. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place. Friend, let's get started. Hello, friends, and welcome to this week's episode of Her Next Chapters.
Christina Kohl:8 If you're listening to this episode in real time, it's being published on June 19th and I'm recording o On the 18 118th 19th and a little over a week ago, I did a LinkedIn Live event, which is what you're going to hear today. So with LinkedIn Live, it's like it says it is live with an audience, and what I did was a live resume review of someone who is a career returner. Her name is Charity, so that's what you're going to hear today is the audio of my live review of Charity's resume with tips and insights around things that she could change to enhance her resume to help her land that job after a career break. I'm not sure how well this will translate, since it's audio only If you want to see the video. I don't have a YouTube channel as of yet, but you could go back to my LinkedIn account and it's just my name, christina Kold K-O-H-L, and you can watch the live event if the video would be helpful for you to see the resume and the things that we're talking about. But in the meantime I thought it might be helpful just while you're listening, that way, if you're out walking the dog or driving your car or maybe even working out at the gym, I still think there's going to be a lot of great nuggets and tips that'll help you kind of plant those seeds in your mind of what things you could do to spruce up your resume, particularly if you have a career gap or if you're pivoting to do
Christina Kohl:something
Christina Kohl:different
Christina Kohl:.
Christina Kohl:And I want to let you know that I have a free resource of a resume template and it's the one that I talk about on the live call with charity. You can download and use that template, completely edit it. It's very instructional and the format is all there. You just have to go and put in your own information. So that is available for you. It is in the show notes. It is a free resource that will be changing in the near future, so grab it now while it is still at zero cost to you.
Christina Kohl:All right with that, let's listen in to the LinkedIn live event. All right, we are live and welcome everyone. Today we're going to be talking about resumes and doing a live review of a career returner's resume. Our guest with us today is Charity, and Charity is a mom of a young child and she is actually attending to her son right now, so she'll be joining us as soon as she can. But I just want to welcome everyone who's attending live and I want to welcome those who are watching the replay. Thank you so much for joining us. I am want to welcome everyone who's attending live and I want to welcome those who are watching the replay. Thank you so much for joining us.
Christina Kohl:I am coming to you from a beautiful sunny day here in Colorado and we are going to be doing a live resume review. Charity and I have had the opportunity to talk, but I've not reviewed her resume with her yet, so this is going to be new for her, just like it is for you. I'm going to go ahead and pop up, so this is going to be new for her, just like it is for you. I'm going to go ahead and pop up and this is my third LinkedIn Live, so I'm getting better at it, but there still might be a little bit of hiccups here and there, so just bear with me if those hiccups happen. All right, so we got the slides.
Christina Kohl:If you have questions about how to address your career break and maybe why your resume isn't getting any results, and also wondering where does your volunteer experience fit in, we're going to be covering a lot of those today You're in the right place, so this session is perfect for you. If you've been sending out resumes with little to no response, you're not sure what isn't working and you want to fix it, and you're stuck and you don't know where to begin, especially how to talk about your career gap, so what I'd love for you guys to do that are listening live is to answer in the comments, just like kind of have an idea of what your situation is If you have a current career break, like you're on break right now, or maybe you're back at work, but you have a history of a break. Put that in the comments either the word current or the word history and then let me know how many years is your break. For me, I'm not on a current break. I have a history of a break. My history of a career break was pretty long. Let's see if anyone can beat me. My break was 13 years long while I was raising my three young kids. So let's, I know there's a little bit of a delay in the comments. Just put it in the comments in the app itself. So, niki, if I'm saying that correctly, you are currently on a break and it's two and a half years long.
Christina Kohl:Charity, when she comes online, she has been on break for almost two years, so that's going to be similar to yours. And then, katie, you're on a current break almost nine years, so that's pretty significant, all right. Well, I don't want to hold things up too much longer. I know Charity is going to be joining us and this is recorded, so she'll get a chance to see it, but gosh, I really wanted her to be on this with us. Um, so we will be reviewing her resume together, live, and also want to let you know that this is going to.
Christina Kohl:This is being recorded for a future episode on my podcast, which is called her next chapters, so if you don't catch it all here, you can certainly catch it there on a future episode. And I think that's it for the slides. Let me pull these out and now my technology is going to be my. My skill is going to be tested a little bit as we move to Charity's resume. Awesome, we've got her resume showing perfect, but I haven't talked about your resume yet. Okay, perfect, perfect. Yes, all right, like well, I was prepared to do this without you. I didn't want to, that's okay. Hi to everyone hello everybody.
Charity:my name is Charity and I've been a home taking care of my son for two years and some months now.
Christina Kohl:Okay, so, charity, I guess it was telling the attendees that you and I've met. We've talked just to kind of introduce each other, but I haven't reviewed your resume with you yet. So this is going to be a first time for you to hear my feedback. And normally a resume would not have these blackouts in it. But Charity wanted to preserve her privacy so we did kind of take out where her phone number would be, her last name and her email address. So you'll see that that has changed. So the other thing you'll notice when we scroll down is that I changed some of the names and blocked out some of the names of her actual employers just for that level of privacy. So, charity, at the very top you've got perfect your contact information, all of that. You're letting me know that you're interested in customer success, compliance and finance.
Christina Kohl:It's hard for me to recognize just by reading those who you are and what you're about. And that very first part is so important because by having the right title there that describes you, that indicates to the recruiter, the hiring manager, anybody reading your resume, exactly what it is you want to be doing. And I know you and I spoke about you know your history is in and I guess we should maybe introduce that a little bit too in the student loans at higher educational institutes. And so you've worked in higher ed and you've worked in finance and loans and I think from our conversation you kind of put customer success in here as just to kind of be a Jill of all trades, like I can do anything. I maybe want to do some customer service, but what you're really wanting to do and correct me if I'm wrong, I want you to to step in is more being in a similar position like you were before, either in a banking role or in higher education. Is that accurate?
Charity:Yes, it is. I put the customer service in there because, basically, if I'm in the higher education industry or field or the banking or finance industry, I'm still catering to customers, be students or members of a credit union or customers of a bank. I just have to make sure that I'm servicing them as I ought to customers regardless.
Christina Kohl:That sounds like an amazing skill set to have, but I don't think that it is a little misleading up here in the title part because it makes it sound like you want to be a customer service rep and I don't think that's actually where you're headed. But you do have it listed here in your skills summary and you've got it right up top, so that's the perfect place for it. And you've got it here in your description and I love your description for it. And you've got it here in your description and I love your description. You know, seasoned customer service and compliance professional. Hopefully everyone can read it.
Christina Kohl:If anyone is on their on their mobile phone, it's hard to read this, I know, so I encourage you to go back and rewatch it where you can see it on a bigger screen. So you, I would encourage you to take out customer success in your title, because that's more descriptor and a skill set. But and then compliance same thing there is. That's more a descriptor and a skill set. And then compliance same thing there is. That's more like a technical skill that you have, but a job think of job titles would go here. So is it a loan officer, financial aid officer? Think of job titles that would go here and that's going to make you stand out more. On that very first thing that we see when we look at your resume how does that land with you?
Charity:I think I like your idea.
Christina Kohl:Okay, and we don't want to get rid of compliance and finance, but they're not necessarily in the right place.
Charity:Okay, so basically get rid of that kind of like a header on there.
Christina Kohl:Drop in the header with a job title Okay, a job title that you're going after, and you might have two different resumes Just based on our conversation. I know you're interested in banking and you're interested in higher education, so you might wind up with one template for each and then you just make some tweaks to it as you apply for individual jobs. So that would be my advice here in this header to make it be a job title, the job title you want to be in, because that's who you are as a professional. You are a finance professional, you are a loan officer, you're a financial aid officer, whatever the right title is. Put your title up there that you want to be Okay. And then I don't really have any suggestion.
Christina Kohl:Your summary statement, I think, is really good. Provides great summary level and high level of what you've done and what you're all about. Where I would offer some changes is in your skills summary. I love customer service being first, because that is so important to like, as you mentioned, to your role and what you do. But a lot of the things you're mentioning here are soft skills, which is great, but it's also really helpful in your situation because you've got 10 years of experience.
Christina Kohl:What are the hard skills, the technical skills, because you could use customer service, empathy, communication, attention to detail, teamwork, microsoft Office Almost all of these would apply to any and every job.
Christina Kohl:They're great to have and they're things that you're going to sell when you're in an interview and you can sprinkle them in elsewhere. But when you're again the top I haven't mentioned it yet the top third of your resume is the most important part, because that's what's going to grab somebody's attention. If you've ever heard of the top third or the top of the fold and that comes back from the day when we used to read newspapers and they're all folded up into a third when they're thrown along your driveway. So the top fold is what people see first. So what you want them to see first is the title of what you're going after. They're already going to identify you as that type of person, then your summary and then your skills that are unique to that job. So what would you say would be some skills that are unique, some more technical skills, and maybe that's where compliance comes in.
Charity:But let's jump into mine, because if you, if you look on the internet, some technical skills can be like um, I did a little bit of cyber security, um, um, but it wasn't related to my, my job or anything going into like financial aid.
Christina Kohl:I'm seeing some things. Look at the screen, if you would. I'm seeing some things that are standing out to me and I didn't mean to interrupt you, I'm sorry, but, and so we'll come back to that in a moment but like things like these technology, the leverage, financial aid tools, so power fades I don't know what that is because I don't work in financial aid tools right, but that's going to mean something to a recruiter if that's the type of job you're going for. So, knowing Salesforce and Workday, knowing the Title IV, am I saying that right? Yes, title four regulations, so those are more.
Christina Kohl:And when I say technical skills, I don't necessarily mean your coding and programming. I'm not thinking IT technical, I'm thinking things that are unique to your job. So, for me as a recruiter, that I'm sourcing candidates right, that's a technical skill. Screening resumes that's not something that everybody does. And having good communication and customer service those can apply to, like I said, almost every job to some degree. We want things in this skill section that is still in the top of the fold, that highlights things that are unique to your skill set and the jobs that you do. Does that make sense of that tracking? Yeah, it does, okay. So, yeah, I would definitely lift these things up here the tech, the tech, not the financial aid tools and just list them as they are the Title IV regulations. So that's the compliance piece.
Charity:I don't have to explain, I just have to put Salesforce Okay.
Christina Kohl:So people get so worried about beating the ATS, the applicant tracking system but it's basically a big filing cabinet. It's a digital filing cabinet and that filing cabinet is going to sort your. So I'm going off on a little tangent here, but it's going to sort your resume by the job you applied for and then it's going to be looking for those keywords and if they're looking for someone who has this experience in PowerFade, salesforce, workday, you want those to be picked up. When I'm doing my search to say, okay, I need someone that has these three software, you want those to pick up. So again, top of the fold is a great place for those to be highlighted. And then I'm trying to think what else? The compliance you can have some soft skills up here that are really important, like even the account and file management. That's probably pretty unique to your type of roles versus every other job. And you're saying a lot of these things. I don't want you to feel like these are unimportant, because they're not. But you're also talking about them in other places. Right, You're talking about customer service and you're talking about customer service here, consensus building. So you've got other opportunities to do the more general soft skills. Your cover letter can address that. But here we want those things that are unique and that are going to be specific to the job. Another clue of where to find, like, what skills do I put up here? Look at the job posting itself that you're applying for. They're going to be listing. We want this type of experience. We want this type of knowledge. Pull it out of that job posting itself that you're applying for. They're going to be listing. We want this type of experience. We want this type of knowledge. Pull it out of that job posting. The things that you actually have You're not going to lie and make things up right but the things that you've actually done and have be looking at their priorities and put it and actually put them in order in the skill summary based on what you perceive from the job posting as most important. The skill summary based on what you perceive from the job posting as most important Sound good? Yes, it does. Okay. So the next section that you have and I wish I could make this, I wonder if I can make it bigger, but then I can't see my screen anymore. We're just going to stay with this the very next thing that you have and that's kind of below the top.
Christina Kohl:Of the third is your career break, and I'm all for putting the career break on the resume. It definitely belongs there. The way that you have it called out right now, though, it is very much drawing my eyes to it and I don't think you want your career break to be such a focus. So I would put it in. You can remove the word professional and just put experience and list it like you do all your other jobs. Put it in the same format. Where you've got and I don't know, can you guys see my cursor move around? I'm not sure if you can. Anyway, just like you have the other dates off to the right, do that for your career break too. So it's going to look like it's a job and instead of calling it out so separately and distinctly okay, it's just going to be embedded with everything else would be my suggestion there.
Christina Kohl:And yeah, the first bullet took a break to concentrate on caring for my child full-time. That's. That's really all that you need there. I don't. And then I. And then the fourth bullet. I would keep that that you've, that you're pursuing. Have you already gained?
Christina Kohl:I think you already have it right, yeah, so um, I would change that wording a little bit, because the pursue kind of is like oh, I'm chasing it right now, so during this time received certification, okay, and the other two you could leave in, but I don't know that you necessarily need them because it's going to. You kind of ask some questions like, well, what are the various challenges? Like what's going on there? Does there you know it's more, more information than an employer needs to know? And and they know that you're kind of what it is to be a full-time caregiver.
Christina Kohl:The other thing with our resumes, we want to make sure that everything that's on there we only get a couple of pages and that's if we've got, you know, decent amount of experience. You want to make sure that everything is pointing to the job that you want to do. So if it's not relevant, it just kind of fluff and it doesn't help you. You want to have everything be pointing to the job, which is why I'm encouraging for you maybe to have two resumes, one for the educational world and one for the banking world. Okay, how are we doing? I'm giving you a lot of feedback and good thing it's recorded, you can capture it later Doing okay, yep, I am All right, wonderful.
Christina Kohl:For a moment, I'm like oh no, I didn't black it out, but we did. We changed the name of the employer, so you've got some great things here. What I would encourage you to add is anything that you can quantify, so I don't have any idea how big this institution is, how many students, how many loans you're processing. If you're the assistant director, that implies that you might have a team. Are you leading a team, are you or were you? No, I was not leading a team. Okay, title only, and let's go ahead. You're gonna say something no, okay okay, in other words.
Christina Kohl:So I would encourage you to add whatever numbers you want to give context sometimes. Sometimes you get, we get hung up on numbers and we just think, like my gosh, I don't know how many millions of dollars, I don't have this precise and whatever, but just think more about context. So, context around this organization approximately what was the student enrollment?
Charity:At the time I was working there. So I'd say, like two years ago, I would say around 7,000. Okay, and that's general enough.
Christina Kohl:Nobody's going to be necessarily fact checking, like if you put in 7,000 and it was 7,200, that's okay.
Charity:About 7,000, but it wasn't all of them that we were reviewing for financial aid, because some of the students opted out.
Christina Kohl:Right, right. So what is helpful especially if I've never heard of this educational institute, which I haven't is to just have, like, parentheses after it. That gives a really brief description. So obviously it's an educational institute of higher learning, but to have approximate enrollment of 7,000 students, that's okay. That you're not providing service to all 7,000.
Christina Kohl:Later, when you get into your bullets so as an advisor, that's more I'm just looking like how many coach perspective and current students? That that's where we'd want to see some numbers. How many students are you coaching? That that's where we'd want to see some numbers. How many students are you coaching? How many loans are you processing? Right, so things, things like that, anything that you can quantify to give us context. So it's not even an accomplishment at that point, it's just context.
Christina Kohl:I'm, I'm servicing this many loans and maybe it's 30 a month and maybe it's. You know, each semester you've got different numbers, you know. However, you can quantify it with what you're doing. And then, yeah, you're revisiting the Title IV regulations. I keep wanting to say Title IX, that's what my brain is trying to translate it to. Okay, and like all private education loans. So again say like, give us a ballpark and that might change from year to year of how many that is. But give us a ballpark and that might change from year to year of how many that is. But give us a ballpark of how many loans. And this bullet here, um, I would take this out and include it in your cover letter instead.
Christina Kohl:Okay, because we're going to assume that when you went from financial aid counselor to assistant director, it's because you're doing a really good job, but it's not necessarily. I mean, unless there's something unique here that I'm missing, like what it took to get promoted. If it was like certain barometers, certain thresholds, you had to meet certain requirements. I mean you were doing a really good job and like, all right, you are going to take on more, we're going to give you more of a workload and give you a title and hopefully you got a nice pay increase. But in general, I wouldn't necessarily have that promoted here. Does that track? Makes sense? Okay, all right. And same thing.
Christina Kohl:If your numbers are any different, you can just put the numbers in here again of like how many people you're supporting and then your loan processing software, if you have any sort of sense, this untimely repayment of tuition and fees, like any sense of timelines, on-time percentages, anything like that, or anything that were really uniquely challenging any loan situations that were like really really hard, and these you'll use for your, your interviews as well, to be able to speak to. But if there's, like you know, like the hard ones got given to you because you navigated them, or there's um, yeah, just any way that you can quantify what you've done. Um, okay, so with the bank, um, and you're gonna have to help me out with this but how big is the bank? Like, what type of number would you use to describe how big a bank is? Number, maybe a billion dollars in assets, by number of customers, and and you don't have to look it up right now, but just be having that kind of in mind because this is a local bank based on what I saw of the name of it, so it's a small community bank, but still there's going to have a scope of assets that are managed by the bank. So, just to give kind of some context, so that way, if I am hiring at a bank, I have an idea like, okay, you've been in this type of market, maybe it's mid-market, small market, whatever the right terminology is to give that context, and that would go right here after the bank itself?
Christina Kohl:The same thing how many loan files approximate? Maybe it's per month? Give kind of some numbers there, because you could have been an intern and done two in a whole month. I doubt it. You're like no, I did way more than two. Give us some scope of what you did. Result exceptions, that's great. Compliance, that's great. Same thing how big is this federal credit union? Your education is great. On the education, I would suggest removing, because we don't need to tell everybody how old you are and these college dates can go away. I would leave this one, the Google cybersecurity, because it's new and recent. But the other ones, it doesn't matter. Whether you got that MBA five years ago, 10 years ago. You know it's going to age you and you don't want to be aged any more than your experience. You're going to September 2012,. Then it's going to open up a question well, what have you done since then? Like you know, what did you do in between? And it's irrelevant. Okay, so that is a very high level.
Charity:Any, questions that you have, charity of things that I didn't cover. So when I was creating this, two pages was like an issue for me because I knew that normally you're supposed to have like a page. Your resume should just be from what I have known since I started working, so I'm a little bit. I don't know if the two pages are okay.
Christina Kohl:Two pages is fine for your level of experience. I would keep it at two and not stress about that. The other thing that I didn't get to, and we'll probably go over time a little bit, but if it's okay, I'm going to show you a format of resume that I really like for career returners, and I've actually used it for myself when I was returning and after I'd been back in the workforce for several years. I used the same format, so I'm going to stop sharing yours for a moment and we'll let me see how do I do it. That's the tricky part. All right, stop screen, yay and present. Let me go to another one window. This is what I want to share. Look at that, cool, okay. So this is a resume template that I offer and it's actually on my LinkedIn profile as a something people can just go there to get it. So desired title, just like we talked about there, is of expertise, your skills. This is what we didn't talk about yet for your resume is taking your experience from the previous, from all of your jobs, and putting them, determining what the what's important to the job that you're applying for, and coming up and determining like, okay, what is that functional area? So for you it's going to be high volume of loan processing, something like that, and then you would have some accomplishments and numbers across all of your jobs that fit into here. So if it's high volume of loan processing, you would have student aid, student financial aid, loans of this many a semester, private bank loans of this many a quarter, something like that, to give volume, and maybe job function. Area two is customer service. So you give some examples around how you're providing customer service. If there's a job function area three, you bring that in.
Christina Kohl:And the reason I like this format for returners is we don't see the first thing being career break. Look at me, I'm on career break. What we see is I am a highly qualified professional and these are the things that I've done that are relevant to the job that I'm applying for. Then, when we get to page two, then we have, hey, I'm on a career break, and what I have listed for this is my personal example. I elected to take a career break while raising my children. I maintain professional skills through substantial volunteer work and currently pursuing SPHR misspelled SPHR recertification to ensure my knowledge is up to date. So for you, you'll have your, your cybersecurity certificate If there's other things that you've done, you would pop those in here.
Christina Kohl:If it's raw volunteer roles, particularly someone had said that they were out for like nine years. That was Katie. Maybe if, Katie, you've done some volunteering during that time, you can pop those in as a job, just like your career break is listed as a job. You'll see. I have relevant experience rather than professional or work experience listed. And if there's relevant volunteer, if you're volunteering Melissa's on the call and I know Melissa right now is playing with puppies. That's one of her volunteer roles that she gets to socialize young puppies that are being trained for service dogs. So if you want to be a dog trainer, absolutely put that on your resume. If you want to get back into the finance industry and they don't have puppies at work that probably doesn't go on your resume, right? So we want it to be targeted, let's see.
Christina Kohl:And then, just like you have all the things that you put on the front page, this back page is going to give context. So the name of the organization. You don't necessarily have to restate all the big accomplishments, but you're going to give kind of that brief description of what the organization does, your job title and then, if there's any other additional specific to that role. And then your education. And if there's volunteer stuff you want to fill in, you can. And if you'll indulge me, I'm going to share one more document. Stop and present share screen. Share screen to show this type of style of resume in action.
Christina Kohl:This is the resume that got me my most recent corporate job, and you'll see, at the time my title was human resources manager, but I was going for HR benefits director jobs, so that's the title that I used, because that's the title I wanted to have. My areas of expertise I pulled it from the job posting, put it in order based on what was important to what I determined was important to that job posting, and so I have a whole bunch of things in here and you'll see that it's not. You know teamwork and you know it's very, it's very targeted to the role that I want to do and that I have done. So my areas of expertise. And then highlights I picked out what I thought were important things for that job Benefit plan management.
Christina Kohl:So this one I managed all aspects of benefit programs for employers with up to 2,000 employees. This represents like four employers. This whole statement represents four employers. And then the second bullet I identified and corrected a three-year cumulative one and a half million dollar funding error and again, context around that that represented one particular job Managed all aspects of eight annual open enrollments. That represents multiple jobs. But to see they're all fitting into benefit plan management and they're all on my front page, before someone gets to rule me out because I've been on career break. And then benefit plan design, putting in some numbers where it's appropriate and again these are being pulled from multiple jobs. Hrs management was a third area that I felt was important and then my work experience. I did actually label it as work but I had my career break on there and because my career break, there's stuff on my career break that was relevant to the job I was going for. I added it.
Christina Kohl:I navigated health insurance benefits while advocating for my child's medical care, which included 16 surgeries. While advocating for my child's medical care, which included 16 surgeries, because I was going for a benefit-related job. That was relevant information and I used it in my interviews to say I know what our employees are going through. As a consumer of health care because I've lived it, I have advocated for my family. In this way I have gotten out of network doctors approved as in network I've gotten surgeries that were not going to be covered, because I understand and know how the system works and I can help our employees navigate it too.
Christina Kohl:Otherwise, if I was just going for an HR position, I probably wouldn't. I didn't include this navigated health insurance benefits. So that was kind of like me just kind of talking a lot. But I wanted to at least kind of show like what in my resume just went away for me, not for you guys.
Christina Kohl:There we go, just kind of wanted to show what it looks like even down the road, if you've already had a career break in your back, to still account for that time. You don't want to leave holes in time. And then I've got my different jobs there and you'll see I have very little listed in each job because it's all in the front page. The important stuff, the good stuff, is all on the front page and back here I'm just giving context. And then I've got my certifications things that I do on my volunteering. So that's a sample of what using the template looks like. Is this type of format? So it takes a little bit of sleuthing on your part to determine what is important to the job that you're going for, to find these buckets and then to fill these buckets with your experience. I feel like I'm like giving you a fire hose to drink out of.
Charity:I'm hoping I can do this. I like seeing your resume like that.
Christina Kohl:Yeah, it takes time and it takes work and I know I mean doing your own resume, doing my own resume is hard because you're just so close to it and that's where it helps to have someone else take a look at it. And the things we reviewed today are obviously pretty high level. There's obviously more detail, like once you start getting drafts done, to kind of get it there, but hopefully that'll help. I know you've been applying for jobs and hopefully that'll help you get more. The whole goal of the resume is to get an interview right. That's the entire purpose. Let me go back to sharing really quick Anyone who's on the call, if they're, and I know we've gone over. But if you have any particular questions, things that I didn't cover or questions about what I did talk about, go ahead and throw them in to the comments and I'll try to address those for you. And yeah, melissa, the format is pretty awesome and, like I said, that's why I wanted to show that format of that is called a hybrid. So you think of a traditional resume is chronological, right, kind of charity, kind of has your started? You had some stuff up up top to you like the skills and summary, um, but that chronological can kind of hurt us when we've had that career gap, because it's just a mindset, a mental trigger that's subconscious as somebody's reading it career break, she's a mommy, and it's going to have that filter the rest of the time. They look at your resume versus looking at. So there's going to go over the three resume types chronological, which is by time. Then there's functional, which is what did I do. So I'm just going to tell you about them by function.
Christina Kohl:What I showed you is called a hybrid, and that hybrid resume is what is? It's a hybrid between chronological and functional. So the first page is functional what do I do, what are my accomplishments and these are in these buckets that you've found, that you've identified. And then page two is the context, which is a chronological. I will tell you, as a recruiter, we do not like functional only. We want to see where you've worked, when you've worked, what your history is. But the hybrid is a nice way to allow for both, to allow you to let your highlights shine and then get to the chronological in the back page. All right.
Christina Kohl:So I'm not seeing any other questions come through, but if you guys have questions, especially for people who are watching this in the replay. Just send me a direct message here on LinkedIn. I'm happy to answer questions and, like I said, the resume template that I showed is available on my featured profile in my LinkedIn on my featured profile in my LinkedIn the featured section of my LinkedIn profile and this month in June, I'm opening up three spots to do resume reviews at a discounted rate for $67. So if anyone is interested in that, send me a direct message and we'll connect. And if anyone is interested in being an incredible volunteer like Charity I applaud your bravery and your willingness to do this with me.
Christina Kohl:That's the first time I've done a live review. If anyone is interested in doing that, I might be doing it again next month, kind of depending on the feedback that I get and the timing to where we can do. There's no charge to Charity for this. It's my way of helping her and helping others to kind of see what this process looks like. So I might be doing it again in the future. Let me know. If you're interested in that, just send me a message and I think that's everything for today. All right, charity, thank you so much, because it kind of takes a lot to put yourself out there and let me pick apart your resume in front of the world. So I appreciate it.
Charity:I'm glad I did it too, so thank you for offering. So I appreciate it.
Christina Kohl:You are very welcome. You're very welcome, all right. Well, that's going to wrap things up. Thanks everyone for attending and we'll talk to you next time. Thank you, have a good day. Thanks, friends.
Christina Kohl:I just wanted to jump in here real quick to let you know that the resume review service that I offer it's normally $97. You'll hear in the LinkedIn live that I offer it for $67 for the month of June, for three spots. I have one spot left as of today, june 19th. If you want that spot, send me an email. It's Christina at hernextchapterscom. And don't forget the S at the end of chapters.
Christina Kohl:All right, well, that is it for this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed listening in to the LinkedIn event and I hope the resume review was helpful for you and maybe gave you some things to think about for your own resume. And I have a quick favor to ask If the podcast is helpful for you. If you're finding the content useful, it would mean so much to me if you could rate and review it, and that is the way that other people can find the podcast is through your ratings and reviews. And if you know someone who could benefit from the content on the podcast, please go ahead and send it to them, share it with them and let them know about it so that we can grow the podcast and help other people learn and grow and benefit from the content.
Christina Kohl:I just really appreciate. You appreciate this community that we're building together and, yeah, just really glad that you're here, all right, well, that's it for this week. I will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and, if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember, your story is uniquely your own and your next chapters are ready to begin.