“When love and skill work together, expect a MASTERPIECE” Anthony Robbins

Are you ready for a new career or a better opportunity? Do you have the tools needed to get you that interview…that new opportunity?

A good resume can be hard to find; just ask any recruiter or hiring manager thumbing through stacks of them. To stand apart from the crowd in today’s competitive employment market, you must submit a document that makes an immediate impression. In fact, a well-crafted resume is your most effective tool for landing an interview and, ultimately, a new job.

According to quite a few studies, recruiters spend an average of six seconds reviewing an individual resume. What does that tell you? That if you’re a job-seeker, it’s incredibly important to make those few seconds count.

Your resume is the most important document in your career. Job seekers are 40% more likely to get noticed by hiring managers with a professionally written resume. Today, your skills, credentials, and accolades must truly stand apart in order to get a second glance. Once you get beyond the six seconds it takes just another few seconds for a recruiter or hiring manager to lose interest and decide to look at the next resume. Your resume must sell your strengths, skills, and achievements in a precise and organized manner.

Following are some key “do’s” and “don’ts” of resume writing.

Do:

·        Do use action verbs as much as possible. For instance, instead of writing a passive sentence such as, “My company has provided me with five years of meetings and events experience,” write using an active voice: “Possess over five years’ experience in strategic meetings management.” 

·        Avoid vague terms such as ‘familiar with’ or ‘experience with’ — these phrases set off alarms to recruiters and hiring managers, who may question your actual depth of knowledge.

·        Be short and to the point. Use bullets. Avoid fluffy or redundant language. The goal is to communicate your abilities clearly and concisely.

·        Use a chronological format. Recruiters, Hiring Managers and Executives prefer work histories listed in reverse chronological order rather than grouped by skills or job function. 

·        Skills, Strengths, and Key Achievements: these are all different and your resume must sell and highlight these separately. Do remember to tailor your resume for the job you want and make sure that your key achievements and qualifications relate to the position. 

·        Let the job description guide your resume. If you’re applying for a position, and the advertisement for the job asks for candidates with ‘high energy’ and ‘experience with corporate clients,’ integrate those phrases into your resume. Many companies electronically screen resumes for keywords, so you can boost your chances of landing an interview by adopting any applicable phrases.

·        Be honest. Do not lie in a resume. People who try to outsmart potential employers by attempting to lie in their resume usually discover that the only person they have outsmarted is themselves.

Do not:

·        Don’t include a long, unrelated list of job duties on your resume, such as ‘familiar with XYZ design software’ and ’good with numbers’ if you are going for a marketing position. Instead, think outside of your job title and list only those skills that are relevant to the opening.

·        Do not make it too long. Do not include 20 years or history or 20 different jobs if you are a job hopper. Make it relevant to the position you are looking for and keep it at a max of two pages.

·        Don’t include irrelevant facts about your personal life: The fact that you enjoy yoga isn’t relevant unless you’re applying to work at a yoga studio. Only pertinent information — such as volunteer work or connections with professional associations — should be listed.

·        Email address: Do not include an unprofessional e-mail address in your resume, such as ‘[email protected]’ or ‘[email protected].’ Uses your name in the email address instead. 

·        Grammar, spacing and fonts: Do not overlook the little things. A resume that has typos, misspellings or grammatical mistakes and different fonts send the message to potential employers that you lack attention to detail. It is always a good idea to use spell-check and ask a friend or relative to review your resume for accuracy before submitting the document.

·        Once again, do not lie in a resume. The truth always comes out. Integrity is important and you never know whom that recruiter or hiring manager may know. You will also be interviewed and you need to be confident during the interview in order to get the job.

·        Don’t list references or write ‘references available on request.’ Hiring managers assume you will provide this information when asked. I also recommend you give each of your references a copy of your resume so they can more adeptly highlight your achievements when contacted.

Not sure where to start? Today, more than 60% of executives hire a professional resume writer. The best athletes have coaches to take them to the next level, so why wouldn’t you hire an expert to help you with your resume and interview preparation?

About the author: Vimari Roman is a Career & Leadership Coach who helps individuals achieve their peak potential and live a fulfilled life by utilizing their natural gifts and talents (also known as strengths). Learn more at www.beproductivecoaching.com. Contact at 786-340-3174 or [email protected]

Self-control and discipline. Both of these actions go hand and in hand. You can’t have self control without discipline. Our level of both significantly affects the level of happiness we experience. As Matthew Kelly puts it in his book “Mastery of self and happiness are intimately connected.” So what is self-control? Self-control is the gateway to freedom. So many of us struggle with appetites and impulses which lead to addiction. This could be anything that we do on impulse such as shopping, gambling, eating, drinking, working, social media and so on.

How do we break from these addictions? One way is fasting. Giving yourself a break from whatever you feel has that control over you. Personally, I like to practice my fasting during lent which is 40 days. This year, I gave up my number one addiction which is coffee. I love my coffee. But I gave it up because I want to be free. I also gave up my wine and bubbles which are my go-to alcoholic beverages and lastly, I gave up Facebook. In giving these things up I felt and saw the difference it had made in my life. The sense of freedom and knowing that I can do anything that I put my mind to brings me joy. Don’t take me wrong, I especially missed my coffee but when I thought about it I said to myself “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” and then I quickly got myself busy or drank a cup of decaf tea.

We all can do this. For example, if your addiction or thing you want to practice self-control with is soda then when your body asks for soda ask yourself these two questions:

1. Why did I give up soda?
2. What could happen if I drink the soda?
3. Is this really what I want?

After you answer these three questions, reply to yourself and say “no, we will have water or juice today because of ____”.

When you are shopping and you have an impulse to buy something ask yourself “do I really need this?” If you are in the middle of your day and have deadlines but your mind wonders and you have the urge to go into Facebook ask yourself the three questions above and remind yourself of what is most important at that moment, and what a time waster Facebook can be at times and fight that urge.

Addictions aren’t always food, shopping, or social media, sometimes they can be behaviors such as criticizing yourself and others, complaining or procrastination. You can fast from these also and free yourself from these behaviors. Try it. Practice self-control and I promise you will accomplish so much. I’ll end by sharing this quote from John of the Cross in the book Perfectly Yourself:

“A bird, whether it is tied down by a thread or a chain, still cannot fly.”

What is tying you down? What is it in your life that is stopping you from flying?

In the last couple of weeks “Women in Leadership” has been popping up everywhere I turn, in many different areas of my life and as I’ve been thinking, I’ve been inspired to write this post.

The first was an article that I read a couple of weeks ago (unfortunately I cannot share the article with you because I don’t recall where or how I got a hold of it). A day later, I received an email from Meetings and Conventions Magazine with an article featuring Meeting Professionals International (MPI) newly launched Women in Leadership Course. I paid extra attention to that article because I am a member of MPI, and I also sit on the Board of the local South Florida Chapter as VP of Education.

This new four-hour course that MPI has launched aims to examine why women are less likely to ascend to leadership positions than their male peers, what they can do about it, and to help them create individual action plans to overcome some of the more common career obstacles. Apparently women represent 80% of our industry, yet we are not seeing 80% in leadership roles. You can click on this link to read the article and learn more about the course: http://www.meetings-conventions.com/News/Industry-Associations/MPI-Launches-Women-in-Leadership-program-meeting-planners/

Last Wednesday, I attended my Emmaus Women’s meeting and oddly enough our topic that day was about “Work” and “Women in Leadership”. The topic was brought up by one of our sisters who shared that at the Hospital where she is currently working they are now launching a “Women in Leadership” initiative because they realized that most of the “leaders” they have are men. Do you see the duplication here? Stay with me…

Then I received an email from my Strategic Intervention & Leadership Coach forum that spoke to Coaches about focusing on Women and Leadership. I started to think and connect all of the areas of my life where this subject was present. In the 3 years or so that I’ve been practicing my Coaching as a Certified Strategic Intervention & Leadership Coach, I think back, and my clients have been both men and women. I started to think back to see if I could identify any differences between Coaching the two and some thoughts and differences came up.

Then yesterday, we celebrated “International Women’s Day” and I was congratulated by quite a few people. Both during meetings or conference calls held, and a few text messages, including one from my uncle who lives in Puerto Rico. I even received an urgent call from the Mayor of the city where I live, asking me to come meet her and some other El Portal staff for 2 minutes, and when I quickly went over to meet them at 5pm, I found out she wanted to take this picture I’ve placed to the right of this post which features some of our police officers, our Village Clerk, the Mayor and I. I was recently elected this past November and sit on the Council of our beautiful Village. Anyhow, I found this all very odd because I don’t recall this day ever being so pronounced. At least not in my personal interactions. This is even more peculiar because Facebook is typically where I get to find out what special International day is being celebrated, and I haven’t been on Facebook since Ash Wednesday when I gave it up for lent. All of these interactions got my mind going and my thoughts took me to all of the Women’s Marches that took place around our Country earlier this year. I continue to connect the dots.

As I connect the dots, I see the trends and as I read articles, have discussions, I realize that they all pretty much have the same information. Basically, women feel that they are still treated differently than men and that they get paid differently. There are statistics support that women still get paid less than men, and that there are less women in leadership than men. But at the same time, I’ve also seen articles and statistics that talk about a rise in women leadership. Like with any subject, if you google, you will find different statistics for the same subject.

Again, I am not sure why all of a sudden this subject is so apparent to me but one thing I know for sure, I believe women are just as intelligent and capable as men. I believe that if women want to be in leadership and get paid their worth, they should. I also believe that as women we should empower each other and look for ways to celebrate each other as men often do. After connecting all these dots, and for the first time ever sitting down to really think about this subject, I ask myself where is all this leading and what am I to do about it.

As a woman, I have been in leadership for most of my career. I’ve been blessed with a wonderful career where I have had the opportunity to grow and learn. I started my hospitality career at 15 years old working part-time at the front desk of a hotel where a few years later I was promoted to my first leadership role as a Front Desk Supervisor. My career continued to grow, and I went from the small hotel in Lynbrook, Long Island to working in New York City at a very high-end all suites hotel on the upper East Side of Manhattan. Once again, I was quickly promoted to leadership. Then I moved to Miami where I also held a leadership role as Assistant Front Desk Manager. Few years later I went from operations to group sales and later promoted to leadership within Sales. In 2013, I shifted from working full time in hotels as Director of Sales & Marketing to becoming an entrepreneur within the Hospitality and Meetings Industry. My personal experience is that I do not feel that I’ve not been able to get opportunities because I am a woman. I’ve gone for promotions where men have also been candidates, and I have received the promotion. I even think I possibly got paid more. I unfortunately cannot relate to what many women feel. This doesn’t mean that I don’t believe this is true. I just have not experienced it personally. I have a Type A personality and I am extremely goal oriented and determined. I question if that has anything to do with my ability to have held so many leadership roles.

As I look back, something did come up. I remember that I was never the type of girl to have too many girl friends. I was always friendly but most of my closest friends were always men. I felt I could relate better, and I also thought women were “catty” or judgmental and gossipy, and I could not relate to those qualities.That was my honest impression of women. It wasn’t until maybe 10 years ago that I started expanding my circles with many women friends. In fact, it was quite noticeable to me and I saw the shift where I now appreciated the nurturing I was receiving from my women friends. I also didn’t surround myself around women that were “catty” or judgmental. The women all had something in common. They were strong and independent women. Many were much older than I and we all appreciated and respected each others strengths and weaknesses. I can now say that I have many girl friends with all different backgrounds and experiences. I now realize the importance of having these circles and how the women in my life have helped me grow.

I’ve come so far that I even joined a fabulous Mastermind Group that my friend started about a year ago. We were 6 ladies who came together to read and study the book “Think and Grow Rich”. I think back to that Mastermind Group and how together we supported each of our goals, and it was truly amazing. Masterminds have been around for ever, but I don’t hear many women talk about being a part of one. If you are reading this post and you are a woman, or have a special woman in your life, I recommend you/they find a Mastermind Group locally. You’ll be amazed on how much you can grow and how you can support the growth of other women.

Seeing this shift in my life, and recognizing that there are many women that are not as confident or have not had the same opportunities that I have, has made me compassionate towards this subject. I would like to contribute where-ever I can to see women gain confidence and not be afraid to go for what they want. Including leadership roles. How I will contribute to this is yet to come…I haven’t thought that far but I think writing this post is a start.

I’d love to hear comments and thoughts on this subject. Are you a woman who feels that you have not had the same opportunities as your male colleagues? Are you a woman who relates to my journey? Are you someone who works on empowering women? Are you someone who thinks this is all BS? Whoever you are and what ever it is that you have done or not done, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Until then…make it a productive rest of the week!

Happy belated #InternationalWomensDay!