Session learnings and Feedback - Strengths-based Resume Writing

Extremely happy to have conducted two sessions on Strengths-based Resume Writing and Interview Preparation for the students of R.A. Podar College in Matunga (E), Mumbai.

Approximately 170 students were covered in two separate three-hour batches conducted over 2 days.

Here is the feedback for both days.

This is where they have stated how they feel about writing their own Strength-based Resume after attending my session.

What they will apply from the sessions-

Extremely grateful to Ruta Vyas and the management at R.A. Podar College for the opportunity.

Do connect with me to conduct such sessions for students.

If you want personalized individual coaching for writing your resume or preparing for interviews, please do write to me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or call on +919820155778 for a discussion.

Answering - Where do you see yourself in Five Years?

How to respond to the interview question - Where do you see yourself in Five Years?

It has been one of the most regularly asked interview questions for a very long time (and now outdated) ,so now it's quite ineffective for an interviewer to expect to make an informed hiring choice with this question.

Why? You might ask? 

You might even say - it shows me how the candidate plans for his future. In a linear world, this could be true. However, this is a valid but somewhat insufficient thought.  Terry Pratchett (one of my favourite authors), said it better than I could:

A similar thought was echoed by the creators of the Scrum Methodology.  You can find it in the Scrum Fieldbook.

What if the candidate asks you what your organization is doing to ensure that it will be around for the next five years?

Of course you can plan the future, you might say.

Reality says - sure, give it your best shot.  Show me the crystal ball you are using, and I will show you what happens when the time comes.

The point is - The world we live in is in constant flux, at a high speed, pulling and tempting us in multiple directions at once.  Changes in technology are happening so fast that yesterday's knowledge gets redundant faster.  What's worse, some of the things we once considered true and sacrosanct are now found to be inaccurate.

Another thing - we tend to base our plans on our past experiences.  While that's a fairly normal practice, that's extremely effective in a linear world, we don't realize that those past experiences occurred due to a multitude of factors, including situational factors beyond our control, our own stage of growth and maturity, and our reactions at that time.  This means that for our plans to be successful, we need to have the same set of factors occurring in the same degree, and we have to take those same steps.  This likelihood is really low.

Now, let's examine this question from the perspective of:

A Candidate, what could be a suitable response to this question?  Here's my suggestion - 

"I'm building my strengths and skills by undertaking diverse experiences and learning from them.  I supplement this with networking for knowledge, and working with a mentor.

I see myself applying my strengths in my future role of influencing or managing people to deliver great results in my chosen field of expertise for the organization, either mine or my employer's, leveraging suitable opportunities that come my way."

Please feel free modify the above so that it suits you, your profile  AND sounds like you, and not someone else.

I cover this and other aspects in my Interview Coaching sessions with both junior and senior clients.

An interviewer - my suggestion would be to modify the question as follows: 

"As you move ahead in your career, what do you see yourself doing five years from now?"

This could be followed up by - "What have you been doing so far to make this a reality?"

This helps move the interview into a detailed conversation where the candidate gets to share deeper information about themselves and you get more clarity on the candidate's potential capability.

I cover this and other aspects of Behavioural Event Interviewing in my specially designed workshop for organizations,  "The Selection Discussion".

Want support to know more? Write to me on +919820155778 or call +919820155778 to schedule a discussion.

The 10 Most Creative Resumes that helped people land their dream jobs

 Great examples of creative resumes prepared by different candidates who really showed off their skills.

Since one of my services is Strengths-based Resume Writing, I must say that I was intrigued and impressed with the resumes shown here.  I know that I would have definitely interviewed them in person.

My word of caution (1) - such resumes are best handed over in person or by email directly to the person instead of the ATS.

My word of encouragement (2) - make sure that in showcasing your creativity, you also showcase your strengths.

Read the article here.

What hiring manager's think of job-hopping!

This is an extremely critical article for all jobseekers.

You should keep this in mind when thinking about leaving a job that you have recently joined.  

Here's the article.

My personal thoughts:

1) I have done my best to meet all candidates if their resume matched the job criteria.  This has included those candidates who have left jobs frequently - within 3 months to one year of joining and those with career gaps.

2) With candidates who have switched many organizations within a short timeframe, I do my best to understand their reasons.  If the switch is due to compensation reasons only and the candidate is being adequately compensated as per market standards, doesn't show anything more than average performance, then I consider such candidate to be motivated by greed first, other factors would be lower down the list.  Such candidates are not shortlisted for further interviews.  The other candidates are what I call Diamonds among Gems (see my article about this here).

3) A job-hopper who has less that 12-15 months of tenure with an organization will have a challenge in demonstrating how they can contribute to the growth of the organization.  It does take time to learn the organization's systems, products, processes and culture, not to mention fitting within the team, and then delivering above average performance.  If the external environment wasn't so fast-paced as it has been over the past two decades, then it might be possible to show superlative performance.

4) The points mentioned in the article are definitely on the mind of every recruiter who gets the resume, particularly the one about achieving  learning, but no depth of knowledge. Job hoppers may get interview calls if they have niche and high demand skills.

If you have a record as a job-hopper there is hope for you.- if you are able to show how your strengths have delivered value to  your previous employers, and can do the same for your current employers too.

Write to me on ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com to know how to do this.

What a customized cover letter and resume can do for a candidate!

Cover letters are mostly ignored by recruiters, mainly because they're templates and don't tell you anything interesting or useful about the candidate.  It takes about 5 seconds to recognize a template, in my experience.

This is also the reason why recruiters scan through resumes.  You can scan  (but not discern much from) a templated resume in 10 seconds, but you can't read and discern much from a customized resume or cover letter, without reading it attentively.  Templates resumes and cover letters don't tell you much about the candidate, other than they know (hopefully) how to copy and paste.

The main benefit of a covering letter is that you can link your strengths to the job vacancy.  The resume can't do this well enough, because, hey, we have done a lot of different stuff in our career and we want to showcase our all our versatility.  Unfortunately this makes it difficult for the recruiter to decide.  This is where a well thought-out cover letter helps.  When the recruiter scans the cover letter and realizes that it is not a template, he /she tends to pay more attention and will likely read the resume in more focus.  

If the cover letter is well written and draws relevance to the vacancy, then the recruiter is sufficiently interested to read about other areas of the candidate mentioned in the resume.  If that is also interesting and bears relevance to the vacancy, there are great chances of the candidate receiving a call for the interview.

Among other services, I also help my clients write their cover letters, resumes and prepare for interviews,  based on their strengths.  This allows them to showcase their uniqueness from other candidates who use templates, as well as stand a better chance of landing an offer for a job that will satisfy and engage them, while benefiting their employer.  

Watch my video "Why you need a Strengths-based Resume" here.

Write to me on ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com if you want to prepare for your next job like this.

Interview Prep - The Jobseeker's Search for Green Flags

If you are going to look for green flags when applying for roles, you need to do some critical prework before you research the company - on YOURSELF.

The prework is that you have to get:

1. A clear understanding of your strengths & weaknesses.
2. Clarity on what kind of work is aligned with your strengths.
3. Clarity on what kind of work environment will suit your strengths

Info on point one you can get by introspecting on feedback given to you by colleagues, peers, bosses, customers, vendors (for freshers - classmates, teachers), or through a validated psychometric assessment like the PRISM Professional report (Ask me about it, I'm a Licensed Practitioner) because:

• It's validated at 0.9 on the Crombach scale
• It is based on neuroscience and identifies our preferences without labeling us
• It covers points two & three mentioned above in vivid detail.

Thereafter, your research from GlassDoor, social networks, customer forums, industry trends. past employees if you can contact them, current employees too if possible.

Once you have all this information, create a list of top five questions that cover your key non-negotiable points.  

Practice asking these questions, instead of reading them out, since you will come across as more prepared and professional.

To know yourself through the PRISM professional and to download a sample PRISM Professional Report, please visit www.prismbrainmapping.com

Upcoming Webinar : Sell Yourself Into Your Next Job - Jan 22

Are you having trouble 

1) getting interview calls

2) Clearing the interviews

You must attend this webinar.

 Register here : https://www.townscript.com/e/Season-8-sell-yourself-webinar-Jan-22

Last Minute Interview Coaching

Got an upcoming interview that's making you nervous?

Contact me for an interview coaching session. Yes, there are charges for the session that are based on your level of experience and the position you seek.

USE YOUR STRENGTHS - to take CHARGE of YOUR Career.

 

Why "Any Job" will not be appropriate for You!

What would you like to have? An ice-cream - which flavour? something from the picture above? Or perhaps a sandwich or a burger? A toy car or a football? An easy project or a challenging assignment?  A job close to your home, or a job in another city?

Throughout our life, we are offered preferences. A preference is about stating a choice from among different possible like-able options. I think it is important, to have and state a preference when offered, because the chances of instantly and completely liking whatever is placed in front of us, is not a surity.  Strangely, we hesitate to state our preferences.

At a party many years ago, a friend was offered a choice of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks.  The friend kept saying "anything will do".  The more the host pressed him, he gave the same response.  So finally the host told him "Ok, you shall have water", to which an instant choice was stated, much to our laughter.

This kind of indecisive behaviour also enters our workplace.  Sometimes, you hear it at office meetings when the boss says "I'm buying ice-cream for the team - what will you have?"  Perhaps it's our upbringing or we're just shy.  

Normally, this behaviour is not going to impact our lives very much. There are some dangers however, as we may come across as indecisive and get a reputation of not being able to make up one's own mind.  Not really positive, is it? And unfortunately, some of us take this approach into our career and life choices.  How? We say things like "Any job will do", "I'm looking for any opportunity to show my skills" or other such phrases when we are asking someone to help us find a job.  This is a common thread, particularly with those who have lost their jobs during the past 10 months.  It's predominant among freshers, most of whom have little or no access to a career counsellor or career coach who is not selling them an education course.

This approach is quite ineffective, because now, your friend or consultant has no idea what sort of job to refer you for.  For freshers particularly, the friend or consultant may not know your skills well enough to make a judgement call on sending your resume to another organization in his network for a particular role. Additionally, a lot of resumes come in a common template format, which makes it hard for any reader to distinguish one resume (and by that extension, a candidate) from another.  And so your resume remains in the back since no preference was mentioned to keep it at the top of the mind, and you remain unemployed longer.

So here's the deal - Freshers and seasoned professions MUST tell their network in very clear terms-

1. What kind of job they are looking for
2. What kind of industry preferences they have  
3. What work they do well (specific rockstar skills they may possess) in that particular role.
4. Write their resume based on their strengths
5. Prepare for interviews based on strengths so that "Recall Value" is created in the minds of the interviewer.  Read my article about this here.

This is applicable to both fresh graduates and seasoned professionals.

So don't just ask for 'any' job.  Get clarity about your job preferences by doing the following:

• Introspecting about your likes, dislikes, and what interests that may be turned into careers
• Developing strong self awareness about your strengths, weaknesses and areas where you want to develop opportunities. Get a Strengths Based Career Coach for this.
• Understand that skills are not one dimensional and can be applied to different industries, thus you can generate more job options.
• Explore i.e. research industries that seem interesting to you through industry journals and news articles.  
• Leverage your network to find out about how it would be to work in organizations that you are interested in
• Inform your network that you are specifically looking for X type roles in Y type organizations or industries.  It creates greater recall value.

Yes it is a lot of work, but it will definitely help you become 

• More clear about what you want in a job and as a career, 
• More confident in your approach, 
• More memorable in the minds of your network, and 
• You stand a better chance of landing a job that you will love, enjoy and be satisfied with.  

Keep in mind.....

Want to know how to do this? Contact me.  I am a Strengths-based Career Coach and Career Transition Coach who can help you do this.  Call me on +919820155778 or email me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com for a discussion.

Sell Yourself Into Your Next Job - Nov 2020

 Welcome to the 6th Webinar on this topic.

Register here:- https://www.townscript.com/e/Nov-20-sell-yourself-webinar

Sell Yourself Into your next Job - 17 Oct 2020

Register here:  https://www.townscript.com/e/Oct-20-sell-yourself-webinar

Sell Yourself Into your Next Job - 26 Sept 2020

 

Here's the flyer and link for #sellyourself into your Next Job - a #strengthsbasedresume writing and #interviewprep Webinar".

https://www.townscript.com/e/Sep-20-strengthsbased-resume-writing-and-interview-prep-webinar

Please do sign up and share with any of your friends who would be interested. Do take advantage of early bird offer.

#jobsearch #jobseekers #jobsearchtips #resumetips #resumewriting #interviewtips #interviewadvice #interviewskills #interviewsuccess #vacancy #strengthsdecoder

Sell Yourself Into your Next Job - Aug 2020

The next webinar of "Sell yourself Into your Next Job - A Strengths Based Resume writing and Interview Prep Webinar" is on 15 August 2020.

Details are in the link below. There is a special Independence Day Offer of Rs. 500/- this time only. Please take advantage and register soon.

https://www.townscript.com/e/Aug-20-sell-yourself-into-your-next-job-a-strengthsbased-resume-writing-and-interview-webinar-231114

Here's a few testimonials from previous participants.

Call +919820155778 or write to me in case of questions.

#jobsearch #resumewriting #interviewpreparation #interviewtips #strengthsdecoder #strengthscoaching #strengthsbasedresume #jobseekers #jobhunt

If your career path might need you to create a new one

This article provides useful insight about how your career path may require you to create a new one.

Enjoy!

 https://www.td.org/insights/3-questions-explore-how-your-career-path-may-be-shifting

Contact me if you want to design your career based on your strengths. 

This would be about 8-10 coaching sessions of 60-90 minutes duration where you would start by 

• taking the CliftonStrengths assessment
• a debrief of your Cliftonstrengths report
• Coaching to help you understand how your strengths manifest as behaviours
• A values inventory for you to understand which are the values  that drive your behaviour
• Coaching to help you identify a career that is based on and aligned with your strengths
• Any other behaviour issue that you wish to resolve

Happy to get on a call to discuss and answer any questions you may have.  I can be reached at +919820155778 or leave a comment here.

Video - Why you need a Strengths Based Resume

As you may know I am a Strengths Strategy Coach that works primarily in the field of career transition.

Check out my video here that tells you why this is important.

https://youtu.be/RYcwraUFmz0


I will be covering this in my upcoming webinar "Sell yourself into Your Next Job" on 18 July 2020.  You can register for the webinar here:

https://www.townscript.com/e/July-20-sell-yourself-into-your-next-job-a-strengthsbased-resume-writing-and-interview-webinar-231114

Webinar - Sell Yourself into Your Next Job on 30 May 2020

Use this lockdown time to redo your #resume and prepare for your #interview based on your #strengths. Register for this highly interactive and reflective #webinar on 30 May 2020 that will change the way you think about presenting your candidature in your resume and in your interviews.

Why this webinar is needed -

The job market is terribly crowded, especially with the COVID 19 layoffs. Resumes are flooding the recruiters tables. There's a paucity of time to read through every resume, and as a result, they skim through the pile of resumes, trying to shortlist as quickly as possible. Now, if you happen to have a standardised template for your resume, it's extremely difficult for it to standout from the others, especially in a short time frame.

So you need to make your resume talk about you, come alive to the reader of your resume so that you get shortlisted for an interview. After this, you also need to prepare for this interview so that you create "Recall Value" in the mind of the interviewers, even if you don't get the job. It helps build your reputation. To know more about "Recall Value", please read my article here.

In this webinar you will learn to create a resume that you will be proud of, as well as prepare for interviews based on your personal strengths. We will also have a specific Q&A session focused on Interview Tips. What you will learn specifically
• How your strengths can make your resume stand out
• Strengthening your Lead letter so that the recruiter prioritizes your interview.
• Video Interviews.
• Tackling tricky Interview Questions
• Creating “Recall Value” during your interview
Date and Time 30 May 2020 4 pm to 6 pm Venue: Zoom Link will be provided to registered participants only. Your Investment Normally, this is priced at Rs. 2,500/- per person for an online session.

However, given the Covid circumstances we are in.

Your special Covid Price is Rs. 800/- per person

Click here to register

Your Facilitator - Ryan Barretto
Ryan is India’s 1st Strengths Strategy Coach who specializes in leveraging his client’s strengths to help them achieve success. As a coach, he works in the area of career transition, self development  and executive coaching. He is also a Corporate Trainer and an HR Consultant.

A graduate from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Ryan brings to the table 25+ years of rich experience in all HR domains. His work experience also pans across multiple industries ranging from Telecom, IT Education, Logistics, Marketing Services, Health Insurance to Time Share and includes a startup where he set up.

He has coached college students, fresh graduates and working professionals. He has been part of hiring teams that have interviewed both campus students and working professionals, and has seen some major errors that could have been avoided with some more preparation

Visit www.strengthsdecoder.in  or www.linkedin.com/in/barrettoryan to know more about him and his work.