If you want a grammar and spelling check or are looking to review resumes, cover letters, and writing samples, Grammarly is an excellent tool. If you want guidance on skills the employer is looking for, copy and paste the position description in ChatGPT and ask it to identify skills that you should emphasize in your resume and cover letter. After uploading your resume and the description of a job you’re applying for into an AI tool, it can tell you how you can improve your resume’s searchability, and what skills should be added or emphasized.

When uploading your resume to ChatGPT or any program, it is essential to remove personal details prior to uploading, as any information given to the program could become a part of future algorithms. For your cover letter, ChatGPT is an excellent resource to help you draft your letter. After giving the program information about yourself and the job you’re applying for, ChatGPT can then develop a draft that you can use to guide and inspire a cover letter that you write yourself. To get even better results, create a first draft to put into ChatGPT so it can give you feedback to improve on your own ideas. Regardless, it is ESSENTIAL that you use the generated text as ideas or edits rather than as your final submission. AI-generated cover letters are general, they do not adequately demonstrate your skills, and cannot write in your own unique voice. Additionally, ChatGPT is not great at explaining your experience in terms of the STAR model, which continues to be an important tool in demonstrating your accomplishments.

Beyond AI, the Office of Career and Professional Development has resources that you can use to improve your cover letters on our Korbel Careers website, and we are happy to meet with you individually to review and edit your materials.
 

How to Write a Resume for a First Job

A resume for a first job should focus on your future as well as your past.

While you might be low on job experience, there are more ways of highlighting your potential than justifying it with job titles. You could be up against people with a few years of experience, but that does not mean that they are more suited for the role. Before you know it, you will be filling that page with compelling stories from every area of your life.

The trajectory of growth during the early years of a career can be meteoric. Every competent manager is on the look-out for a diamond in the rough. The resume for a first job needs to show enough glimpses of diamond potential to show that you are worth polishing.

The resume for a first job should contain the normal resume sections. You do not want to present yourself as being significantly different to other job seekers, so try to make your resume look as normal as possible. The content may differ somewhat. In this blog, we will explore how to handle each resume section when you don’t have much experience.

But do I need a resume for my first job?

How can you expect a hiring manager to decide between ten or twenty applicants if they have no way of objectively comparing? Every one of them will be saying how much they want the role, so steer the interview conversation in the desired direction by sharing your most compelling selling points in your resume for a first job. The hiring manager will expect a resume – you won’t get an interview without one.

What do include in the summary?

The summary section at the top of a first job resume should be dominated by your career objectives. These are the most important lines in your resume, so don’t feel that you should fill them with half-hearted attempts to shoe-horn your weak experience to fit the demands of the role.

The summary should be loud and proud about who you are and how this job can help you get where you need to go. If your inspirational mission statement can make a hiring manager curious about their role in your journey, then you have won the first battle. Those first few lines need to prompt them to imagine what it might be like to work with you.

How do I maximize the work experience section?

There is all sorts of experience that you can include that can help to highlight relevant skills and attributes. Internships, paid work experience, casual jobs, volunteering, and extra-curricular projects can all combine to showcase the desired skills.

You need to maintain a laser focus on the demands of the role when you write a resume for a first job – by all means, tell your best stories but do your best to find an angle so that they are relevant. Tell the stories that the hiring manager wants to hear rather than those that you are aching to share. They are the customer in this career transaction.

What skills will impress a potential boss?

While you might be tempted to fill your first job resume with every soft skill that you think will be required, only include those that you can flesh out with evidence and examples. Try not to exaggerate your soft skills as that will become clear during any interview.

While your hard skills may be lacking, it is enough to show that you are a fast learner. Pick out some times from your past when you had to become competent at something in a limited period – preferably when there were negative consequences to getting it wrong. You should mention the required hard skills in your resume, even if you do not possess them – let the hiring manager know that you know what you are working towards.

Are details about my education really that important?

College and university education details assume slightly more significance in a resume for a first job because they provide evidence of hard work and achievement. Include your grade average (if it is reasonable) and any detail of relevant projects or coursework. Having said this, resist the temptation to dedicate too much space to your education. Your future boss will be more interested in your career objectives and personality fit.

Whether you are writing a resume for a sales assistant, telemarketing role, academic tutor or administration role, a resume for a first job is a piece of writing where you realize that you are ready to take that first step.

You have more going for you than you think. This in-depth guide offers more great advice.

For your next position, you’re looking for a management role. You know you could lead a team of people, devising strategy and inspiring them to do their best work. 

There’s only one problem: you haven’t actually been a leader before. 

This is a common catch-22 in job applications. To win the position, you’re often asked to already have experience in a similar role. But in order to have experience, you first have to land the job! 

How, then, can you make sure your application stands out for managerial positions? 

Here, we’ll share some of the management skills, resume phrases, cover letter ideas, and interview strategies that should do the trick. 

Identify the skills you already have.

It can be intimidating when you’re reading job postings that require certain management skills you don’t feel like you have. But it’s likely that you do have many of them, even if you haven’t developed them in formal management roles. 

“If you’ve assisted with new hire onboarding, presented at a company training, collaborated on a new departmental policy rollout, pitched a new initiative to leadership, or planned and executed an event from start to finish, you’ve already got some legitimate management-level experience under your belt,” said Jaclyn Westlake. 

So, the first step is identifying management skills and resume phrases that keep cropping up on job postings. Then, make a list of specific experiences and accomplishments you have that can speak to these competencies. 

Share examples of when you’ve led a team in your resume.

Once you’ve figured out relevant leadership skills, you want to include them in your resume. As resume expert Virginia Franco said, “A compelling resume that demonstrates your initiative, accomplishments and strategic insight is key to persuading a hiring manager that you are more than ready to take the plunge into management, or catapult to that next level of leadership.” 

Here are some competencies and language you should include: 

• Strategic planning – share examples of when you worked on long-term strategy and planning in your current or previous positions. This demonstrates that you’re not just following someone else’s vision, you’re creating your own. 
• Your accomplishments, not your required tasks – creating an accomplishment-focused resume, where you discuss your (ideally) quantifiable successes rather than your responsibilities, is particularly important here. You want your resume to indicate that you’re focused on success rather than just on completing assigned tasks. 
• Informal leadership roles – again, you might be bogged down by the idea that you don’t have a “manager” in your job title, but it’s likely that you have informally led a team. For instance, have you ever led a project? Mentored a new colleague? Offered specific expertise to solve a problem? If so, these are incredibly relevant to include. 

Add leadership skills into your resume.

Now that you have your ideas, add them to your resume. Some of the best management skills resume phrases to include the following from Indiana University Southeast: 

• “Excel in achieving outstanding project results
• Improve the effectiveness of communications and interactions with others 
• Effectively commit resources of staff, funds and time 
• Discover new approaches 
• Uses the most penetrating and objective evaluations to arrive at decisions 
• Effectively assess employees resources”

Demonstrate your enthusiasm and willingness to build your leadership skills.

After you have figured out the leadership skills you do have, you also want to mention that you’re interested in developing these capabilities in your cover letter and at the interview. 

Lisa McQuerrey shares some ways to convey an interest in developing your leadership skills: 

• While I do not have direct management experience, I have always stepped up to accept challenges and assume leadership roles in group activities.
• While I have not previously held the title of manager, I have been the department lead for five years, during which time I reorganized our staffing procedures, developed a peer review process and led small-group initiatives.
• I believe I have earned the respect of my peers, who view me as a reliable and consistent presence. They often ask me for advice, due to my coordination skills and conflict-resolution approach.

If you’re not landing interviews, build your leadership skills.

Even with these approaches, you still might not find success in winning a management role. So, you also want to build your management skills – both so you can add to your resume and so you can develop your ability to lead. For instance, you could try: 

• Asking your current employer to lead a project. Sharing your interest in management can help you secure more opportunities to be in charge. 
• Volunteering or taking on part-time or temporary work. If your current role doesn’t give you many leadership opportunities, consider looking elsewhere. You can management skills resume phrases in reporting volunteer or part-time experiences. 
• Taking classes that give you a background in the skills you’ll need. Taking leadership classes and adding them to your resume is a great way to show your initiative and willingness to learn. 

Becoming a Leader with Management Experience

Every leader has to start somewhere, whether they’re promoted internally or win an external role.

That said, there are many ways to gain leadership experience, even if you don’t have the word “Manager” in your title. For instance, it’s likely that you’ve already developed strategic plans, collaborated with others, created budgets, and given presentations – you just need to make sure to translate that experience into your application materials. 

If you don’t have the experience you think will earn you the job, then you can ask to take on new projects in your current role, take on a temporary position, or enroll in a class.

Your ability to demonstrate transferable skills and your enthusiasm to build your leadership skills will go a long way in winning you a management role.

This event is Part 2 of a three-part Job Search Bootcamp webinar series!

Job Search Bootcamp #2: Writing Strong Resumes and Cover Letters

Once you’ve identified a job to apply to, it’s critical to make sure that your resume and cover letter are as strong as possible to land you an interviewing opportunity. Especially in a turbulent economy, it’s critical that you submit quality applications when job postings receive more applicants. In this 45 minute webinar and additional time for Q&A, you will learn about:

– Tailoring your resume so that it matches the job description
– What makes a cover letter boring (and how to fix it)
– Tips for addressing career switching or gaps on your resume
– Applicant tracking systems that scan your resume and application

Attached are tips on how to ensure you get a quality recommender and ways to help help steer them in the right direction with your letter.

The average job seeker needs to send out between 100 and 200 resumes before landing a position. Corporate jobs are even more competitive, with each opening receiving around 250 applications. 

If you’re not hearing back after submitting applications, you may not know how to turn your luck around. The first place to look is your resume. 

If you’re using outdated resume techniques, you may be getting screened out before a person even looks at your application materials. This is because a significant percentage of companies use Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) to sort through materials. 

“Applicant tracking systems sort, scan, and rank applicants by looking for keywords in applications. Although these programs can save time and money for employers, about 60% said such tools cause them to miss some qualified candidates,” explains WSJ‘s Allison Pohle.

So, if you haven’t modernized your resume since applying for your last jobs, here are the latest resume techniques to help you beat the ATS and impress the hiring team. 

Your resume should detail your standout achievements, not your job responsibilities.

Many people consider a resume a list of the tasks you completed in your past positions.

But this isn’t the case. If your resume looks exactly the same as someone else’s who held the same responsibilities as you did, you’re doing something incorrectly. 

That’s because a resume should focus on your accomplishments, not your responsibilities. 

So, modify your responsibility bullets to be accomplishment-focused using the STAR method. 

STAR stands for: 

• Situation – what context is necessary to understand your accomplishment? 
• Task – what was the problem you set out to solve? 
• Action – what did you do to remedy this problem?
• Results – what happened as a result of your action? The more quantifiable, the better. 

For instance, your updated bullet might look something like this: 

• Trained and mentored 18 interns by developing an onboarding program and coordinating daily check-ins.

Keep your resume short and focused.

If you’ve had a long career, you might be tempted to write about every job you’ve ever held, including the roles you held right out of college.

But you should conceive of the resume as a short and sweet document that hiring managers peruse before deciding if they want to invite you for an interview. 

So, it should only be one-page maximum (unless you have a reason to make it longer) and should only include 10 to 15 years of your professional life. 

Create a summary at the top of your resume and support it with examples.

Gone are the days when you would write an objective statement describing what you hope to get from a job.

Instead, you want to write a summary statement – a short two-to-three-sentence paragraph describing your background and the professional future you envision for yourself. 

Monster shares a strong Account Manager Summary Statement:

“Goal-driven, award-winning account manager with repeated success generating company-leading revenues on a nationwide scale. Offer a record of multimillion-dollar revenue generation, #1 sales distinction, and quota-surpassing results in selling complex mortgage and commercial-lending products.” 

While writing a summary statement is important (and difficult), it’s even more important to back up your claims with the rest of your resume. 

“Make sure the rest of your resume supports your summary…If you include in your summary that you have been a consistent top seller for your region, you should include specific examples in the body of your resume to reinforce this statement,” suggests GCFGlobal.

Customize your resume for each application you apply for.

Are you taking a one-size-fits-all approach to your resume?

If so, you might be committing one of the greatest sins in the resume world: failing to modify your document for every job application you submit. 

To do this, you want to look at each job posting and identify the experience and skills the company cares most about. Then, you want to write your resume using these keywords exactly. Yes, exactly, meaning that you should incorporate those specific words even if you have similar ones already in your document. 

Where should you incorporate these keywords and phrases? 

“In addition to the ‘work experience’ and ‘skills’ section of your resume, you should also include keywords in your cover letter and resume summary. That said, make sure you only use keywords and phrases when they make sense rather than repeatedly or forcibly. Indiscriminate keyword stuffing can lead some systems to avoid your resume,” Coursera advised.

Using the Latest Resume Techniques to Update Your Application Materials

If you’re applying for a job, you should assume that an ATS will read your resume before it makes it to a person.

In fact, 98.8 percent of Fortune 500 companies use an ATS or recruiting management system (RMS) to screen for only qualified candidates. 

At the same time, you want to make sure your resume is persuasive when a person does read it. So, using the latest resume techniques, like the STAR method, customization, and keyword matching, ensures that your resume will advance you to the interview round. 

Something that can be daunting for mid and late-career professionals is winnowing down their experience to 10 to 15 years for a resume.

In this webinar, hear from Executive Resume Writers Staci Collins and Renita Kalhorn about how to turn a long career into a short resume.

We often hear about how job hunting is a full-time job.

Some people do spend 40 hours a week on the process, but even if you don’t have that much time, every job search requires considerable time.

According to Zippia, it takes 21 to 80 job applications to land an offer. About half of candidates receive at least one offer after three interviews.

The number of applications necessary is likely to increase at the executive level, too, as each position at this level receives around 250 applications.

So, if you want to land that elusive job offer sooner rather than later, Indeed.com suggests applying for 15 positions each week – or two to three openings per day.

“Sending out multiple applications each week that you customize to a specific position can increase your chances of getting a job. Suppose you’re currently searching for a job. In that case, it’s important to balance submitting multiple applications with other tasks that can help you find the best employment opportunity for you,” the editorial team suggests.

The key here is ensuring you’re searching for positions you would take if offered and individualizing your application to each opening. If you’re launching application after application, you’re probably wasting your time.

Of course, it can be demoralizing searching for jobs, tailoring each, and preparing for interview after interview. You may be kindly rejected, or you might not hear anything after you complete the application.

Why do some companies ghost applicants?

“The bar for candidate selection is higher than ever. There are many more qualified candidates for far fewer positions. On top of that, people are working harder and may not have the bandwidth to respond in a meaningful way, no matter how qualified you are,” explained Columbia Business School for Ivy Exec.

If it’s taking you a while to land a job offer, you might be doing everything right but haven’t found the right fit. But some people may inadvertently hurt their chances by committing one or more of these applications or interview snafus. Do you recognize any of them?

You’re focusing too heavily on job boards, not on networking.

If you’re only applying for jobs via platforms like Monster.com or Indeed, you’re missing a key part of your job search: networking. You are much more likely to land a job if you’ve connected with someone who works there or through someone in your network that they respect.

So, the first step is determining your ideal place to work. Identify the companies, the positions at those companies, and the individuals you know who work there. Then, you can start developing the connections that help you stand out from the pack.

Target companies and positions rather than hunting through job boards.

You should only spend about a quarter of your job search online – the rest of the time should be spent networking and targeting.

“Setting up keyword alerts (like the ones you can set on Fairygodboss) and receiving daily emails can be an effective way to use job boards without going into the rabbit hole of pages and search results. A daily email will ensure you see targeted jobs as soon as they are available,” said Alyson Garrido.

You’re sending out a generic cover letter and resume.

Of course, your job search isn’t just a numbers game. You can’t just apply to any position, hoping it will increase your chances of landing an offer. If you’re sending out the same cover letter (with only the company names changed) and resume to each job posting, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

Even if you’re applying to similar jobs at various companies, make sure you’re individualizing each and every cover letter and resume you send. This means you should change your resume’s language to match how the application is worded. Most companies use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that screen resumes based on how closely the candidate fits the profile.

Tailor your cover letter to demonstrate your enthusiasm for this particular company. In other words, do your homework about the company’s successes and what interests you about working there over any other organization.

Struggling to convey excitement in your cover letter? Then consider how satisfied you’d be if you were offered the position.

Your online presence is lacking.

Many companies will check out your social media profiles – especially your LinkedIn – to see if you exude the same personal brand you did in the interview. So, your online presence must be consistent across multiple platforms, not to mention complete.

“How do your social media profiles look? Are they a mishmash of (public) family photos and some political point-of-view posts? One of the most important aspects of your job search is to ensure that your online presence is up to date and professional,” said Jennifer Parris.

You didn’t understand the company before the interview.

When you are invited for an interview, you should thoroughly understand the company and its values. What is their mission? How would your role fit into the larger company culture?

Failing to do your research about the company will mean that you’re not tailoring your responses to what matters most to them. If the organization prioritizes equity and inclusion, for instance, and you don’t address this in your interview responses, you’ll be less likely to impress the hiring manager.

What’s more, you’ll be less likely to ask smart questions after the interview – doubly hurting your chances.

“So not asking enough questions is a huge red flag to employers and will make them worry that you don’t care what type of job you end up with, you’re desperate and just want any job, or you’re trying to do the bare minimum to get hired,” said Biron Clark.

Streamlining Your Job Search Efforts

If you’ve been applying to jobs for several months but are not receiving the offers you expected, you may want to consider if you’re making one or more of these five cardinal job application mistakes. Remember – more applications are not always better, especially so you can apply only for positions that interest you and individualize each application.

Are your application materials free of these errors but still unsuccessful?

Consider consulting with one of Ivy Exec’s Career Coaches on a new job search strategy.

Sometimes, a second or third pair of eyes can make all the difference in your success.