I’ve read hundreds of resumes over my management career and have seen them all.  From embedded memes to pictures of candidate’s dogs.  Information on how to write an effective resume is abundant online…it can be overwhelming.   I recommend three simple things, that, if done well, can set you apart from other candidates and land you an interview for your dream job.

Remember the objective of a resume is to get you an interview.  You’ll need your resume to get through both the applicant tracking system (ATS) filter and then the hiring manager review to get an interview.  I like to say that you should write your resume for both people (HR and hiring manager) and machines (ATS). 

There are three areas you should focus on to get through these screenings to get an interview.

1. Include a high-impact summary statement:

The summary statement should be 3-4 sentences at the top of your resume.  It should emphasize your key experience and qualifications for the job you’re applying for.

Hiring managers typically read through 25-30 resumes after the ATS screen.  They will rarely read through entire resumes, skimming the top to see if they should read the rest. You need to hook them with a high-impact, relevant summary. 

You want this to be your career highlight reel…like a movie trailer enticing the audience to want to see more.  While emphasizing your top skills and experiences, you need to make sure your summary relates to the job that you are applying for. 

You should slightly tailor your summary for each job you’re applying for…making sure your summary includes keywords and qualifications from the job announcement.  This is an area to focus on to “beat the bots” (ATS). 

2. Put your relevant skills in bullet points:

Make sure you incorporate key skills and qualifications from the job notice on a bulletized list under your summary statement.  Remember, you are writing this for both people and machines.  This is another area to “beat the bots.”

You should always place your technical (hard) skills before your interpersonal (soft) skills. This is important as it allows the first items employers see to be job-related skills in order of proficiency.

Again, make sure your bulleted skill list includes keywords from the job announcement to help you pass the applicant tracking system screening.   You should tailor this section for each job you are applying for. 

3. Highlight your accomplishments:

Write your “professional experience” section in your resume to highlight your past accomplishments that are related to the job opening.

Hiring managers look for three things on your resume, “What did you do? Why did you do it? And what was the result?” Ideally, you want to list three to six roles on your resume demonstrating progress on your career journey.

Under each role, include a short description of the job responsibilities followed by high-impact bullet statements of accomplishments. Responsibilities describe what you were supposed to do, and accomplishments are the specific outcomes that demonstrate how well you performed your role.

For your bulletized accomplishments, follow the STAR method:  What was the situation, what action did you take, and what were the results?  Use action-oriented verbs to begin each bullet.

AI Tools Can Help You

You can use AI tools to help you with your resume.  Rezi and KickResume are great AI platforms that can assist you in writing your resume. I’ve found these tools especially helpful in providing action words and verbiage for accomplishment bullets. You can pick from various resume formats and styles to fit your brand.

I recommend using ChatGPT to help you with your summary statement. I use the free AI “chat” function in Microsoft Bing to help me with wording for summary statements and cover letters.

Jobscan is excellent for reviewing your resume against keywords in a job announcement.  You upload your resume and the job announcement, and it will give you a score on how well your resume connects with key words in the job notice. It will also give you recommendations for improvement. This is a go-to tool for me to help clients’ resumes “beat the bots.”

Summary

When writing your resume, include an impactful summary statement; put your relevant skills in a bulletized list; and highlight your relatable experience and accomplishments.

If you want to see a few examples of summary statements, bulletized skill lists, and accomplishments, check out the templates on my web page:

If you follow these three steps and utilize AI tools to help you, you’ll have a good chance of “beating the bots” and connecting with the hiring manager to land an interview for your dream job.

Networking involves building and maintaining relationships with people who can offer you advice, support, opportunities, or referrals. If you’re like me, networking doesn’t come naturally.  You need to develop networking skills to help get your dream job and advance within your career.

You may have heard this before, but you should spend 60-70% of your available job search time on networking.   The remainder of your time would be spent on online postings and applying for jobs.

The Power of Networking

When I transitioned to civilian life after the military, I quickly found that networking was essential to getting my next job and getting promoted.  My network helped me land my first civilian job, and I had mentors who helped me find and secure new opportunities in my civilian career.  My network led to me getting my last leadership job before I retired and to the current role I have with a veteran nonprofit.  

Over the past year, I’ve helped many clients with resumes and LinkedIn profiles.  But often these won’t land interviews by themselves, and the customers become frustrated.  For many, it wasn’t until they took advantage of networking opportunities that they started getting interviews.

You have to build your professional network and continue to develop it over time.  You have to consistently work on developing your networking skills.  But don’t fret, there is help out there.

Build a Mentorship Team

Mentors should be a valuable part of your new professional network and they can help you extend it.   You should develop a mentorship team, as few senior-level people have the time or range of expertise to serve as solo mentors.  

You should find mentors who are professionals in your target career who can help you network and give you additional ideas on who to connect with.  If you don’t have any mentors in your chosen career field, you can find some good mentors online.  

Online platforms like MentorCloud, MentorCruise, and MentorCity are sites you should explore to find professional mentors.  These platforms will ask you to complete a simple profile and offer potential matches with various mentors.  You make the selection based on who you think would be the best fit for you. 

Using Social Media to Build Your Network

Another way to build your professional network is to use social media. LinkedIn lets you find professionals in the jobs and companies you’re interested in.  You can manually search LinkedIn for professionals in your target job or use an AI tool.

NetworkAI is an AI tool that helps you grow your LinkedIn network.  It shows you who to connect with and what to say based on your profile, goals, and interests. You should do short information interviews with the professionals you connect with on LinkedIn.  You can do these online or on the phone. Keep your informational interviews brief – 15 to 20 minutes.

Join Professional Associations

Another way to build your professional network is to attend professional association meetings in your chosen career field.  For example, for project management professionals, the Project Management Institute has local chapters that meet on occasion with the primary purpose being for networking.  Join a professional association and attend local meetings to build your professional network.

How To Network Effectively

When you have an informational interview or another networking opportunity, you want to use a structured approach to get the most out of it.  Early in my career when I had a networking opportunity, I just “winged it.” Thinking back, I could have been much more effective in my networking opportunities.

A simple, structured approach to your networking opportunities can help tremendously.  A client I recently coached recommended a great book called, “The 20-Minute Networking Meeting”.  This book provides a structured 5 step process for conducting networking sessions.  I highly recommend you pick this book up and follow the approach when you’re networking.

Start with a Clear Goal and Plan

One of the first things to do for networking connections is to have a clear goal and plan for your networking opportunity. What are you hoping to gain from the interaction? Having a clear goal and a plan can help you focus your networking efforts and make the most of your time.

Most networking opportunities can have three main goals:  1) Find leads for open positions; 2) Gather information on needed qualifications and what it’s like to work in your target job/ company; 3) Add new contacts to your list through referrals.

The Conversation

Think about how to start the conversation by preparing some open-ended questions or topics that can spark a dialogue. For example, you can ask about their background, their current projects, their challenges, and their goals.

People love to talk about themselves, and they appreciate it when others show interest in them. Asking people about themselves is a simple and effective way to build rapport, trust, and likability.

If you have a specific goal or need, don’t be afraid to ask for it. You can ask for referrals, recommendations, introductions, or opportunities, as long as you are polite, respectful, and clear. 

Exit the conversation gracefully by using a couple of strategies: 1) Express your appreciation and gratitude, such as “It was a pleasure talking to you” or “Thank you for your time and insights”; 2) Exchange contact information and suggest a follow-up, such as “Can I have your business card?” or “Can we stay in touch via email?”.

What Can You Offer?

This question you ask yourself is often overlooked but it can be a difference-maker.  It will help you feel like you’re a partner and not a burden to the people you contact.  I’ve had mentees share their insights and resources that have helped them in their job search.  They have helped me be a more effective coach for others.

The Follow-Up

Follow up every time. Networking is not only about making connections but also about keeping them. To do that, you need to follow up with the people you meet and show your interest and value. You can follow up by sending an email, making a phone call, or connecting on social media.

Remember that networking isn’t about being smooth and polished.  It’s about developing relationships through brief, meaningful interactions.  These professional relationships can provide leads for job opportunities and insights into what it’s like to work in your target job and company.  To be effective at networking, follow a structured approach and work at it.  It may pay off when you least expect it to help you land your dream job.

Once you’ve identified your chosen career area, you need to create the professional identity that you want to project to potential employers.

Your professional identity is your value proposition. It’s what makes you unique and sets you apart from others in your chosen career field. This is your personal brand.

Your New Identity

You’ll communicate your professional identity at career fairs and in your LinkedIn profile, resume, and cover letters. It will tell people about your strengths, passions, and unique experience that relates to your chosen career field.

To define your professional identity, you should pull from your top strengths.  Use results from your High 5 Test to identify your top strengths.  My results are below to show you an example:

Include your top passions in your professional identity.  Use results from the O*Net Interest Profiler to identify your top passions.  An example of my results are below:

Bring your top strengths, passions, and relevant experience together to define your professional identity.  Try to summarize your new professional identity in a few sentences.  This will become your mission statement and elevator pitch.

Craft Your Elevator Speech

Your elevator speech shouldn’t last any longer than 30 seconds.  It should include:

• Who you are and what relevant experience you have
• What your skills are and what is unique about how you apply them
• What you want to achieve

Here’s an example of an elevator speech that I helped a veteran with:

“I am an Army veteran with over 5 years of experience managing complex technical projects using my leadership and problem-solving abilities.  I’m looking for a project management opportunity that utilizes my critical thinking skills along with my passion for leading teams to achieve high-impact business results.”

The more specific you can get on your strengths, passions, and experience the better.  You want to show your unique value proposition.

Your professional identity or brand is unique to you. You’ll use it in your professional marketing strategies for your LinkedIn profile, your resume, cover letters, career fairs, and networking activities.

Your professional identity and elevator speech give prospective employers a clear idea of who you are, what you stand for, and what you can offer to their company.  Spending some time to create it and then communicate it will go a long way to landing your dream job and career.

Once you’ve defined your purpose by identifying your passions, strengths, and values, you want to find a career that aligns with that purpose.  This will involve a little research and some potential reskilling to optimize your qualifications to land a job in that career.

Research to Identify Your Dream Career

After using the online tools mentioned in Defining Your Purpose, you should have some ideas of a few career areas. Look at careers that are highlighted in your O*Net Profiler results.  The O*Net Interest Profiler Career Areas show the six career interest areas and typical careers that are aligned with them. 

Downselect to 2-3 careers to explore in more detail. You want to make sure your chosen career meets four simple criteria:  1. You’ll enjoy the work; 2. It’s a good fit for you; 3. It provides reasonable compensation; 4. It fulfills a need.   

You should research growth projections and forecasted pay for your candidate careers.  Some online resources are available and include: 

• The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has employment projections so you can review growth projections over the next ten years. This table also shows the entry-level education needed for each career.

• Indeed Salaries can help you see the salaries for your careers of interest.

Understand Needed Skills

Once you narrow down your chosen career and your target job, you should search job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn to understand the requirements, skills, and experience needed for this role. 

You can also reach out to professionals at companies you’re interested in. I recommend using LinkedIn to identify individuals who are in your target job and work for companies you’re interested in.  Message them to see if they’re open for a 10-15 call to discuss how they got into their role and what’s needed to succeed.

These informational interviews can give you insights into the skills and abilities needed in your target job and also give you an idea of what it’s like to work in that company.

Resources For Reskilling

If you find out that you lack some skills or experience for the target role, several online resources provide classes and certifications in various areas:

• Coursera is one of the most popular platforms for online learning. It offers courses and certificates from leading universities and companies in various fields, such as data science, business, health, computer science, and more.

• edX is another leading platform for online learning. It offers courses and certificates from top universities and organizations, such as Harvard, MIT, Microsoft, and more.

• Udemy is a platform that offers thousands of courses on various topics, such as web design, digital marketing, photography, and more. You can find many free courses on Udemy, or pay a fee to get a certificate of completion.

• Salesforce Trailhead is a program provided by Saleforce that offers free self-guided, web-based training.  It provides classes, certifications, and support needed for successful tech careers and guarantees job interviews.

Gaining Needed Experience

If you need to bolster your experience for your target job, there are a few ways to gain experience that you can add to your resume. 

If you currently work in a company that has jobs in your target role, you can ask your assigned manager if you can shadow someone in this role. Shadowing can last a few hours or days depending on how long an employer allows you to do so.  This allows you to try out the role to see if it is a good fit for you. 

Another way to obtain some direct work experience in your target role is through freelance opportunities. Freelancing can be helpful if you’re looking for creative opportunities where there is demand.  Upwork and Fiverr are two freelance websites where you can post your freelance services and get experience.

You can also volunteer at a nonprofit organization to gain experience in your target role.  I worked with a military veteran to help him gain more experience in project management by connecting him to a nonprofit that needed project management help.

Reskilling for a career change is not an easy task, but it can be rewarding and worthwhile. To reskill successfully, you need to research the skills and qualifications necessary for your desired career. Take advantage of online resources to get the skills and credentials needed.  You’ll then be able to market these new skills in your LinkedIn profile, resume, and cover letter to help you land your dream job. 

The first step in your career transition is to define your purpose. Purpose provides a deep sense of meaning and is your north star. If your career transition is anchored to your purpose, you’ll find deep fulfillment in what you do.  A recent Gallup survey indicated that over 80% of people aren’t fully engaged at work because they don’t have a sense of purpose. Defining your purpose for a career transition involves finding a career that aligns with your values, strengths, and passions. There are three simple steps you can take, using some free online tools, to help you define your purpose.   If you follow this simple approach, you’ll be well on your way to landing your dream job.

Your purpose is the junction of your passions, strengths, and values. I call this the sweet spot. The picture below is a simple graphic showing this intersection:

You can download and print this graphic out:  Tools: Define Your Purpose. As you identify your top passions, strengths, and values, you can write these in on the graphic.

1. Identify Your Passions

The first step to define your purpose is to identify your passions.  Many people confuse purpose with passion.  Passions are built on emotions and interests, while purpose includes your values and convictions.  Passions are things that you lose yourself in…activities you enjoy so much that you lose track of time. Passions may be activities you love or topics you are endlessly curious about.

If you’re unsure of what your passions are, you should try answering the following two questions:  What tasks or activities at work or in your personal life cause you to lose track of time?   A second question is: What are you endlessly curious about?  Try to list 3-5 passions from these two questions. There are several online assessments that can help you identify your passions and work interests. My favorite is the ONet Interest Profiler.  It’s a 60-question assessment that takes about 5 minutes to complete.  This tool identifies your top career interests from six categories.  It relates what you like to do to various career areas.

2. Identify Your Top Strengths – Your Superpowers

Your superpowers are your top strengths that come naturally to you.  Everyone has at least one or two.  Try to not just identify your talents, but what your real gifts are…what you do better than anyone else.  Two questions that can help you identify your superpowers are: What do other people ask me for advice on?  and What do people complement me on?   It’s always good to get outside perspectives on your superpowers…what other people think your top talents are.  You can ask or text close family and friends a simple question: What am I better at than anyone else?

There are also several excellent online assessments that can help you identify your natural strengths.  The best free assessment I’ve found is the High5 Test  which was developed by StrengthsFinder.  Their assessment is 100 questions and takes about 15-20 minutes to complete.  It ranks your strengths and provides some suggestions of career choices based on these strengths.

3. Identify Your Values and Convictions

You probably already have a good idea of your values and convictions, but it’s always good to reflect on what’s important to you.  Ask yourself:  What do I care about the most in the world?  Make a list of as many things as you can think of.  Your list should reflect what’s important and personal to you, not what others may expect from you. Review your list and pick your top three and rank them. 

There are some free online tools that can help you identify your core values and principles.  Gyfted provides a free online assessment of 10 universal personal beliefs using a well-respected theory of basic values known as Schwartz’s theory.

Finding Your Purposeful Career

Finding a meaningful career that aligns with your passions, superpowers, and values involves some research.   I haven’t found a tool or website that does all of this for you, but I expect that AI job matching tools will advance and eventually get there.  Two of the online tools I’ve mentioned earlier identify career areas based on your passions and strengths.  Both the ONet Interest Profiler and the High5 Test provide you ideas for career areas to explore. You can then review these career areas to see what aligns to your values and convictions. Which of these careers would provide a deep sense of fulfillment?  

Try to identify 3-5 careers that are aligned to your passions, strengths, and values.  Your career options should meet the following four simple criteria: 1. You’ll enjoy the work; 2. It’s a good fit for you; 3. It provides reasonable compensation; 4. It fulfills a need.  In the next job transition step, you’ll do research on each of these potential careers and down-select to one or two dream careers to pursue in your job search.

Living a life of purpose involves applying your passions and superpowers to a worthy cause.  There are simple questions and free on-line tools that can help you define your purpose by identifying your passions, strengths, and values…and find careers aligned to them.  If you invest a small amount of time to define your purpose – where your passions, strengths, and values are aligned – you’ll be well on your way to landing your dream job.

Artificial Intelligence seems to be in the news every day.  There is constant chatter and speculation about how AI will change the world, both positive and negative.  On the upside, AI has the potential to make transformative advances in several business areas. Software development, customer operations, sales and marketing, and research and development have huge potential for AI benefits. But the AI buzz is also causing fear and anxiety where AI could eliminate jobs and take control over elements of our lives.  Many career coaches are downplaying the use of AI as it presents a threat to their business. The reality is that there are several AI tools for job seekers available today that can help in the following areas: 1) resume and cover letter writing; 2) resume and LinkedIn profile review; 3) job matching, and; 4) interview preparation.  I’ve tried out several AI tools in each of these areas and have identified my top picks.  If job seekers lean into trying these AI tools, you’ll find that AI can become a powerful ally in streamlining your job search and give you an edge in landing your dream job.

Writing Resumes and Cover Letters

The area that AI is being used the most by job seekers is resume and cover letter writing.  There are several AI-powered tools where you can input your job title, work history, pick a template, and the AI tool will create a resume for you.  AI resume writers like Rezi, Kickresume, and Skillroads can help you build a summary, identify skills, and create bullet points for work history.  Rezi is one of the most popular as it offers a free basic service. You can copy and paste the job description you’re applying for, and it will use AI technology to identify key words and skills.  It was useful in coming up with bullet points for my work history. Kickresume was the best AI resume writing tool I came across.  Its AI wizard was helpful in offering suggestions for work accomplishments and suggesting skills I should include to match the job.  I ended up with a professional looking resume I was happy with, and it took me less than half an hour. On the downside, it does require a small subscription fee ($5/month as of this publishing date).

AI resume writing tools can help you get past writer’s block and come up with a first draft.  I found it helpful in giving me ideas for action verbs and different verbiage to use in bullet points.  One of the pitfalls to avoid is that you should not use AI generated resumes for your final resume.  You’ll need to edit and customize your resume to make sure it’s accurate and has the tone that you want. If you generate the same content as everyone else, you won’t stand out in the application process.   I recently reviewed a client’s resume that was written by one of the AI tools.  The resume read well and had an eye-pleasing format but included work history that wasn’t the client’s.

Most of the AI resume tools like Rezi and Kickstarter also include the capability to write a cover letter.  Again, these tools can help you get through writer’s block and provide a decent first draft.  However, like the resume, you’ll want to customize your cover letter.   You should use your own words and voice to showcase your unique value proposition and fit for the role.  AI-powered tools can help provide good examples of verbiage, structure, and templates for a first draft.  Creating a draft cover letter using the free ChatGPT in Microsoft Bing can be as effective as using one of the job seeker AI websites.  It provides strong verbiage and a solid structure that shortened my time to write a customized cover letter by about 40%.

Resume and LinkedIn Profile Review

One of the best AI applications for job seekers is a resume reviewer.  I use an AI resume reviewer when I’m creating a client’s resume from scratch. Kickresume will analyze your resume in three key areas that HR recruiters find valuable: 1) Does the resume contain everything it should?  2) Are you using the space effectively?  3) Are there any overused expressions in your CV’s content?  Some AI-powered tools help you incorporate key words to match job descriptions. This increases your chance of making it through the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) screening process that most companies use.  Skillroads has a simple AI resume checker that scores your resume on ATS compatibility, accomplishments, relevance, and resume sections.  The best resume reviewer I found was Jobscan.  You paste in the job advertisement that you’re applying for, and Jobscan will assess how well your resume matches it.  Jobscan also gives you feedback on improving the content, format, structure, and keywords.

Several of the AI job seeker tools include features that review and help you optimize your LinkedIn profile.   Over 80% of recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates for a job and more than 90% of recruiters use LinkedIn to vet job candidates.  Jobscan has a strong LinkedIn profile optimizer tool.   If you use AI-powered tools to optimize your LinkedIn profile, you may have the fortune of having your next job find you instead of having to look for it. 

Job Matching

AI-powered tools can help match you with job listings that are relevant to your skills, experience, and preferences.  AI job matching tools use machine learning algorithms to analyze your profile and the job market and then recommend the best opportunities for your career goals.  Hired is an AI platform that helps match your skills and experience with the needs of tech companies.  It has one of the better user interfaces as the intake process is simple and straight forward.  Rezi has a job matching function that is in the beta phase, and I found it to be limited.  Another platform, Fortay, tries to match your preferred work environment to companies’ business environment.  It offers a quiz to help you narrow in on companies with the right culture fit for you. Talentprise was the best AI-powered tool I found for job matching.  It provides tools to identify your preferences and includes a skill assessment to match employer needs.  It ranks your job match based on five pillars, including education, expertise, experience, capabilities, and skills.

AI job matching tools show promise, but most seem to be optimized for the employer and need improvement for job seekers.   As companies move away from their Applicant Tracking Systems in favor of AI-based platforms, I expect AI job matching tools to improve for the job seeker.  I would continue to check out these tools to see how they can help you find your dream job.

Interview Preparation

Another area that AI can help job seekers is with interview preparation. Some of my job seeker clients don’t feel they need practice interviewing or may feel uncomfortable practicing with another person.  AI-powered tools can provide a safe space to practice interviews and give you exposure to numerous example questions.  InterviewGPT.ai utilizes ChatGPT capability and has a simple user interface.  You input the position and company you are interviewing for. It then asks you mock questions and you type in your answers. The concept is good, but it gave me an error message when I tried it several times.

Huru has a handy mobile app so that you can practice interviewing anywhere or anytime.  The app allows you to select from several job categories and then will guide you through a mock interview.  It gives you feedback on your answer for each question and provides tips on how to improve your answer.  Huru allows you to go through a customized mock interview for a position on one of the major job boards like Indeed, LinkedIn, Monster, ZipRecruiter, and Glassdoor.  After you download the Chrome extension, you select the position on the job board, and Huru will provide a customized mock interview.

InterviewIgniter is the best AI interview prep tool that I found due to its detailed feedback.  It has some excellent features to prepare you for your interview. This includes an extensive question bank with categories like conflict management, teamwork, and problem solving. InterviewIgniter gives you a customized AI-guided mock interview based on the job description that you’re interviewing for.  You then get detailed feedback immediately from the AI coach as it analyzes your answer in several dimensions.  It provides feedback and ideas for improvement in areas like clarity, specificity, tone, confidence, and following the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Results) framework that most companies use in a structured interview.  InterviewIgniter then gives you an overall rating and suggests specific ideas for improvement.  It gives potential follow-up questions that the employer may use based on your initial answer.  You can also record your interview using video or audio to get even more personalized feedback.  

Summary

There are several good AI tools for job seekers that can help you land your dream job.  They can assist you in resume and cover letter writing; reviewing and optimizing your resume and LinkedIn profile; job matching; and interview preparation.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find an AI tool that excelled in all these areas.  Each platform had its specific strengths, and the best I found for each area of the job search are:

Resume writing:  Kickresume

Cover letter writing:  ChatGPT on Microsoft Bing

Resume and LinkedIn Profile Review:  JobScan

Job Matching:  Talentprise

Interview Preparation:  InterviewIgniter     

AI can be a powerful ally for job seekers who want to streamline their job search and increase their chances of landing their dream job. AI-powered tools can help you overcome writer’s block and create a solid first draft for a resume and cover letter, but you should still customize these yourself. AI-powered tools are excellent for resume reviews and interview preparation, and I encourage you to use these. AI job matching platforms are still needing improvement, but I expect these to improve as more companies utilize them. You should try out these AI tools for job seekers, as they can give you the edge in landing your dream job.