Résumé as Marketing Device
When advising students on résumé development, the conversation must often be more of a marketing discussion than one on how students can summarize themselves. What are some of the best strategies that you have found to teach this distinction and encourage the necessary skills for students to market themselves successfully?
Teaching our students to market themselves can be very difficult. I am still working on trying to get them to show the best of themselves and to focus on the needs of the company. In the past I have worked with our career services department to assist with this. I have also had Human Resource Personnel come in to speak to the students regarding professionalism and their presence on social media.
Hi Rhonda,
Of all the strategies you've used, what do you find has worked best for you in getting your students to have that "light bulb" moment to focus on the needs of the company?
Thanks for contributing to the discussion!
All of my students/graduates are career changers. I ask my students about their past careers/lives and then show them how that information can be used, along with their new education and skills, to find their first job in their new career. I make sure they do not drop any past education or experience, but it usually makes them look stronger as a candidate. I emphasize that the purpose of the resume is to get the employer to pick up the phone to call them, so let's make it obvious!
This certainly can be an area of challenge for our students, most of whom freeze because they don't know how to market themselves in their new career as massage therapists.
I begin the discussion with "who they are", with the goal of getting them out of their head and into their heart and I ask; how do they describe themselves, how do others describe them, what do their student clinic clients say about them in their post-session evaluations, what do their teachers say about them, what were key accomplishments they've had in previous jobs, why did they choose massage therapy, what do they love about massage therapy, what is their vision for their new career, why should an employer hire them? This usually begins to empower the student and begins the conversation of what could make them of interest to an employer. From there, design/construction of the resume becomes more of an organic process. But the necessary first step is the student discovering and owning their own "brand" and most appreciate my guidance in that process.
Hello Amy,
Thank you for sharing your process. It's important to encourage students to feel comfortable in the conversational style you've described while challenging them to think more deeply about themselves. The process definitely is one of self discovery and awareness and is necessary before developing any marketing collateral. I love that you describe the process as organic - it definitely is and speaks to the old saying that a resume is a "living document" because we grow, our experiences change and so too must the collateral we use to convey our value proposition in the job market.
Thank you for sharing! I look forward to further discussion and more ideas/thoughts from you in this course.
I have students market their previous careers or experience. Because we are a vocational school that teaches one vocation, students think that their previous experience does not count. I tell them that previous experience is a way to market themselves, not just what they are learn at our school.
Hi Pamela,
What strategies do you use to ensure students communicate their past experience in such a way that emphasizes relevance, highlights transferable skills, and/or de-emphasizes the least relevant information?
Robert Starks Jr.
When our students begin their program with us, I have them complete a 'vision cloud' where they answer, "what do you think will be most fulfilling about a career in massage therapy?" and "What is your vision of your dream job in massage therapy after graduation?" It's two sentences that gets them thinking about their career & future.
I will often use this as a springboard to assist them with marketing themselves for their resume. Sometimes their vision has changed, however we had started the thought process early on and the wheels are turning.
Another strategy I have used is if I see an email address that is inappropriate, I will politely but strongly encourage them to think of a better, more appropriate one. Then we start brainstorming business names/email addresses that are suited to what they want to do if they are going to be working as independent therapists. The discussion will start in class and extend to the lunch room and I have observed it on their Facebook pages as well. It works well for us.
Hi Paulette,
Thanks for sharing these practical strategies. Once you are able to get students to realize the importance of managing their professional image as part of a marketing strategy to obtain their career goals, I'm wondering if you've thought of (or use) ways to then get those students who have had that "Aha moment" to further spread the message and influence other students to adopt similar behaviors/strategies to market themselves. I've found that often, career services could use additional human resources but if not staff, they can often mobilize students to assist in helping other students. I would love to hear if you have any thoughts or specific ways in which you already do this effectively.
Thank you in advance for sharing.
Robert Starks Jr.
The best strategies I have found include having a meeting with the student to identify career goals, review qualification and experience, and create a list of specific positions and employers that the student will be applying for.
After we have identified these details, we can begin to develop their "resume marketing" approach. By recognizing the employer audience who will be reviewing the resume, we can begin to incorporate professional details of the student as it relates to what the position calls for. Typically, we will create a combination style resume and tailor the format (using primary and secondary headings) to highlight those qualities/experiences that would excite an employer.
Hi Chasminh,
Thank you for sharing your process. To clarify, have you found that going through this process, students begin to understand that resume development is truly part of a marketing strategy or do you you have students who already understand this prior to engaging in the process? I'm sure you may have both - what has been your experience?
Robert Starks Jr.
We do try to teach our students that a resume is their marketing tool.
We also try to show them how past experience can be translated into transferable skills. We offer several different business and medical programs and we often have students who are coming out of one industry (such as retail) into a business or medical field.
I show them how many of the same skills they may have used in retail customer service can translate into their chosen field (such as time management, multi-tasking, handling stressful situations, etc.)
It helps that our Career Services department has a strong partnership with the instructors who teach our Job Orientation classes (this is the class that teaches about resumes, interviewing skills, cover letters, etc.) This allows us to help update and guide the information being taught in the classroom.
Hi Vanessa,
Have you found your instructors regard Career Services as the experts on career marketing? Has there ever been any push-back? Can you describe your journey in developing your close relationship with instructors and how you are able to guide the information being taught in the classroom for others who may not have as good of a relationship with their instructors or who may see resistance to their advice/guidance?
Thank you for sharing!
Robert Starks Jr.
I've been in my position for 2 years and in those two years, I've only had 1 instructor who didn't really coordinate fully with Career Services. She didn't undermine Career Services' expertise to her students, she just didn't participate completely in the partnership.
The way we began to have some input in the classroom was by coordinating with the instructors to go in and speak on different topics such as resumes, dress, interview skills, and even how to properly complete an application.
Once we started to do that, the instructors began to partner with our department more. We were also very lucky that the instructors told the students they should listen to our advice because it was our job to know this information and we knew what we were doing.
Over the last 6 months or so, we have actually begun teaching the Job Orientation classes because there was a need and two people in our department were willing to step up and take on the challenge and had the teaching credentials to do so.
But even before, we had a strong say in the information being given to students over the last several years because of our activities in the classroom.
One other thing, if one is getting push back, try to involve someone higher in the school. With the instructor who wasn't as fully engaged as we liked, I eventually had to take it to the Director of Education. I know that's an uncomfortable thing to do, but it was essential in order to make sure our students were getting the information they needed (and to make sure Career Services was getting something as reasonable as a good resume).
Once we let the D.O.E. and Campus Administrator know that things weren't being done was well as we would like, there was a meeting called and, through good communication, things were put on the right path.
It can be frustrating to get the ball rolling, but it can be done.
Hi Vanessa,
Thank you for sharing your experience! This is a great "case-study" for others who may want to implement similar strategies. My own experience is very similar to the process you described. In my experience, faculty were a bit more territorial and had lots of resistance with exception of a few. I partnered with the DOE and requested to conduct training for our faculty at in-services. I still remember the first time I delivered a training - light bulbs came on and they had the "aha" moment and saw that what we conveyed to them (which is what we wanted to train our students on) was of high value and was an urgent need. They were all on board and our office started getting invited to go to classrooms because faculty were so excited about what we were teaching. This lead to a formalized process of identifying specific courses throughout each program where Career Services would conduct workshops/presentations on specific career topics. I found that educating our faculty helped get enthusiastic buy-in but it helped build advocacy for Career Services and made our instructors better - they appreciated learning and wanted to pass what they learned along to their students.
It's valuable to hear these stories - thank you for sharing!
Robert Starks Jr.
May I ask what types of in-services you gave to your instructors? While we've had a good relationship with our Job Orientation instructors in the past, I would like to have ways to connect with our faculty as a whole to get them invested in the process of how our students will find a job once they graduate.
Hi Vanessa,
My observation was that faculty were often giving contradictory (and outdated) advice and guidance to students. Additionally, faculty were not current on the importance of a professional online presence. Thus, I specifically requested to have 30 minutes of time to address the faculty during an in-service. My DOE was very open to this and was actually appreciative that I proactively wanted to train them on current career marketing trends.
My presentation goal was to get the faculty to understand that recruiting practices have changed; thus, job search and career marketing has also dramatically changed so that they could understand why it was critical for us to teach students new skills and approaches. In a nutshell, my presentation shocked them - they were surprised how little they knew about current trends and the implications for their students. The result was complete buy-in, a sense of urgency to allow us to teach students, increased invitations to classrooms for workshops and presentations, and requests for more training at future in-services. Topics that I often found to be of particular interest for faculty were Applicant Tracking Systems and the impact on resume design, recruiting strategies such as social recruiting (Jobvite and Bullhorn have great data on new trends), mobile recruiting, and Search Engine resume sourcing and the implications for job seeker marketing strategies. I ended up doing 4 different presentations to faculty. It improved our relationship because they saw our department as the experts and it helped us accomplish our goals with students as we also improved their advocacy to use our department's services but we also gained an increased willingness to collaborate on all initiatives.
Some excellent tools I used that I found got my point across quickly in an engaging way that fascinated faculty were the following videos:
Twitter Job Hustle: http://vimeo.com/25812909
Google Please Hire.me: http://googlepleasehire.me/
QR Code Resume: http://vimeo.com/21228618
Although this is an older presentation I created, it still rings true and may also help you learn more and possibly use with students: http://www.slideshare.net/robertstarksjr/job-search-30-9216989
Robert Starks Jr.
Thank you so much for the information!
