Interviews, whether in person, via video conference, or on the phone, all require that you promote yourself, your qualifications, and your accomplishments. Here are 5 new tips to make the interviewers love you:
Resume
What Can You Do to Be Ready for 2019?
No matter what your individual politics, I think we can all agree that the shutdown is at best disappointing and at worst, a real threat to individuals, families, and the reputation of government employees, the vast majority of whom are committed to their work, their agencies, and the public. As I traveled during this holiday season, I went out of my way to thank the government employees I saw (TSA Officers, among others) to thank them for working without pay.
Creating a USAJOBS Profile
All applicants applying for competitive service positions must do so through USAJOBS; you must have an account and a profile. Your profile must be accurate. This profile is what federal Human Resources (HR) professionals use to determine your eligibility. If your profile is incorrect, you may not receive the consideration for which you are eligible.
September is International Update Your Resume Month!
Because you never know when you’ll need to use your resume, September has been designated as International Update Your Resume Month as an annual reminder for job seekers (and those who may, at some point, be job seekers—which is all of us!) to review and update their resume, LinkedIn profile, and other career documents.
Making Sure Your Resume Works in Applicant Tracking Software (ATS)
Those of you venturing into the private sector for the first time should know that private sector resumes are much different than federal ones. One of the major differences is that virtually all private sector resumes are run through Applicant Tracking Software (ATS).
There is no industry standard for ATS. That being said, there are some commonalities across systems. Since you may be thinking about updating your private sector resume—or even creating your first private sector resume—in honor of International Update Your Resume Month, here are some things to know as you work on your private sector resume.
• Key words are king. Make sure that your resume reflects the key words for the position you are targeting, Not sure what the key words are? Try running the job announcement through a word cloud software.
• Do not put your name and contact information in the header or the footer. Not all ATS can read what you put in a header or a footer. Some ATS can but why take that chance?
• If you have a title such as PE, PhD, CEM or even Junior, you may want to leave it off your resume. You do not want the ATS to read your last name as PhD.
• Standardization is the way to go. Most ATS uses (and expects) standard section headers. This is not the time to get creative. Use headers such as Education, Work Experience, Certifications. Dates should be expressed as months and years. Many ATS calculate years of experience from dates and they need the months to do so accurately.
• Use Word and send your resume as a .doc if at all possible. Some ATS cannot read a PDF, JPG, or even .docx. If you are a Mac user, invest in Word for Mac (the real Word).
• Make sure that your email address, LinkedIn URL, and other links are not live. You do not want ATS to read your live link as a potential virus.
• For your experience headings, you should put Company, Location on one line and Job Title, Dates on a second line underneath the organization and location.
• Make sure the file name says more than “resume.” Instead, make your file name: Your Name, Job Title Applied For.
Take 5 min to Proofread Your Resume the Right Way
Did you know September is International Update Your Resume Month? Likely not, but it’s a perfect time to proofread your resume. Proofreading is hard—and it’s especially difficult to proofread your own work. Despite the challenges, it is critical that your resume be perfect and, if you’re including a cover letter, that needs to be perfect too.
Asking someone else to proofread your document is a good strategy but make sure the person you ask has strong grammar, spelling, and editing skills. And of course, you want to proof your own documents.
Some tested strategies for proofreading include:
• Read your document slowly from beginning to end to check for typos and other errors.
• Run spell check (recognizing that spell check is far from perfect and will not pick up errors in word usage; for example, using manger when you meant manager.
• Read your document backwards, starting at the end and then reading right to left
• Read your document out loud
• Run your document through Grammarly.com or other similar software
Here are some other ideas to address common mistakes:
Check for Punctuation Issues:
• Put periods at the end of all full sentences
• Keep your punctuation consistent when using bullets
• Periods and commas belong within quotation marks
• One space after a period is the current standard (not two spaces, which is appropriate for typewriters—and you’re not using a typewriter for your resume, are you?
Check for Spelling Errors:
• Don’t rely on spell check—it will not catch homophones or wrong words that are spelled correctly
• Use a dictionary
• Put your resume away for a couple of days and then read it; some times a few days away will help you see errors that were invisible before
Check Capitalization:
• Capitalize the first word of every sentence and bullet point
• Capitalize names and other proper nouns. The names of cities, countries, companies, religions, and political parties are proper nouns, as are days, months, and holidays. Other proper nouns including nationalities, institutions, and languages
• Governmental matters should be capitalized (as an example, Congress but not congressional, US Constitution but not constitutional)
• Government agencies are capitalized but the words federal and state and not generally capitalized unless those words are part of an official title (like Federal Trade Commission but not federal regulations)
• Titles are capitalized when they are followed by a name unless the title is followed by a comma
• Titles are not capitalized if it is used after a name or instead of a name
Tense Tips:
• Former jobs should always be in past tense
• Accomplishments should always be in past tense
Typos and other errors can be the “kiss of death.” The above tips, while not all-inclusive, will help ensure that your resume, cover letter, and other career documents are error-free.