January february, time practical bit here in canada earlier in else elsewhere in the world um, it was an employee’s market.
Now it’s an employer’s market because they got candidates for law to choose from.
So you need to make yourself competitive, okay, folks, it’s the read method, insider podcast! This is episode 73 of the show, and this is always the fun time when we’re getting started with all the technology.
That’s involved in.
You know me and technology.
So here we go without further delay tonight, it’s episode 73 and we’re going to discuss how to market and sell yourself to future employers with an absolute global expert today and so much so.
This man has worked with me in the past, so um it’s privileged to have met him previously and to have him back in the show.
So here we go as a globally acclaimed executive, career, coach and executive resume writer.
Our returning guest has helped thousands of individuals across the world and literally across the world folks manage their careers, climb the corporate ladder and land the jobs they deserve.
He had been a subject matter expert in nurturing the careers of emba candidates and alumni ambitions, profession, business professionals, mining executives and the c-suite community in over 74 countries since 1993, and we were just talking about some countries he’s visited just in the last year, like just Blows my mind after a distinguished law enforcement career, specifically with the renowned london, metropolitan police and the famous scotland yard, he retired and started elite resumes, he enjoys helping young clients in all functions, advance their careers working with emba and mba programs.
Inspired him to launch embrace career coach network, a platform of tools catering to graduates and candidates anywhere in the world by march 2020, he has worked with over 2100 emba graduates and candidates from a variety of business schools and in 2015 his intentional reputation attracted attention from The association of executive search consultants, where he served as an executive, resume writer and career coach to global executives like this resume.
It was so long folks, there’s so much in there last thing: he’s earned 20 plus certifications, including master resume writer, certified social media career strategist, personal branding, strategist and along many more among many more accomplishments, and i’m very privileged to have back on the read method.
Insider tonight for episode 73, mr martin buckland.
Thank you brother.
It’s a pleasure to be here.
Yeah, i’m sitting here in my house in horseshoe valley a little bit frustrated that, as we discussed a few minutes ago, i’m not traveling.
I was due to be in colombia today, bogota and tahiti last week, but um i’m sitting here in my lounge – well, not not so bad to be in up north in northern ontario, either my friend.
No, it’s beautiful up here, very good um yeah! You were talking about all those places that you would have been in and and when we were talking about global you’re.
Talking about, i mean tell us some of the most share with the audience.
Some of the more you know interesting places that you’ve actually been to.
Well, i might the the bulk of my base uh.
My client base is london, uh frankfort, um, zurich, hong kong and singapore, as well as here in canada and new york, but i’m very lucky.
I mean i go to dubai, a lot.
I go to the middle east uh quite a bit.
I travel europe uh, i’m always on the plane.
I have a london office, so i’m always on the plane to london.
Just like a i commute to london, um uh and i i’m used to flying.
I come from an airline, family and uh.
I i love flying.
So it’s nothing, i’m not extraordinary to me.
Um i’ve had clients from all over the world.
I mean every client is interesting.
I have to as a professional, be aware of their cultural diversity and the way they uh sell themselves because uh we’re coming on to this topic.
I know people from asia and the middle east to a certain degree cannot sell themselves.
They’re, very humble um, you know it’s not it’s not good to be humble.
When you’re selling yourself, you need to you’re a product yeah.
So it’s it’s interesting working with people of different cultures and steering them into a sales mode.
Well, it’s very necessary – and i love the subject because i literally – and i actually did not share this with you um and it just standed me when i was preparing doing the research for the court for the uh this this episode.
I actually created a course on selling yourself in any meeting or selling yourself in public because it became so necessary, as i was traveling as well, and doing my lease training.
My sales mindset training to not just universities and colleges but to all the dealers and companies across north america, and you know one of them said well what you know.
Can we talk about how to sell ourselves? So, as you know, i literally created a course on that and delivered it.
So this is so important and it’s becoming increasingly relevant today, um in our business, because, as we will talk about in in in the show today is you know, and i’m sure you share with the audience all why this is becoming such a big deal.
Sure, especially with our present economic situation and the pandemic situation, and how this is affecting lives – and this is what it ultimately comes down to – is how we can help to improve our lives and to improve the lives of others so martin.
So why do you think number one this i’ll ask you first? Why do you think this is such a relevant subject right now? Oh well, this is my third recession.
I’ve worked through um and um.
This is not, in my perspective, the worst i believe the 2007-2008 recession was worse, but i think we’ve just from my my network.
I mean i network with the c-suite across the world and economic professors and people of uh, the very learning people.
I think we’ve still got a long way to go and heaven forbid.
If we have uh clothing too, that’s going to be really disastrous on everybody.
We’ve already touched everybody anyway, yeah and it’s going to touch even more so careers are very, very important.
You take your career home uh to your family life in your career finances, your house.
My nurse is your car: financially, just kids, schooling, your investments, your cottage job, whatever and uh.
There’s a lot of hurt out there right now and people don’t manage their careers.
They think they just they they’re totally ignorant about managing their careers and then, of course, when they’ve been terminated and they watch me on social media – and you know, i’ve got a extensive presence on social media, i’m pretty fearless on social media, all platforms.
Yes, they they say: oh my gosh.
I’ve been watching you, but i’ve never taken any notice of it and now i’m in career transition and now i’m panicking and now i need my resume now.
I need my linkedin profile and now i need to get my show on the road, because i want to get a job like just tomorrow.
Well, people aren’t going to hire desperate people like you not to show you can show it to your coach like me, but i don’t show it to anybody else, but yeah it’s it’s um.
I think we’ve still got a long way to go in in this.
I hope i’m wrong, but you never know.
I think we’ve still got a long way to go in this in this recession.
I think it’s going to dig deeper and uh there’s going to be a lot more unemployed, so you are in a competition even more so it was a january february time prior to kobe here in canada earlier in else elsewhere in the world um, it was an Employee’s market now it’s an employer’s market because they’ve got candidates for law to choose from so you need to make yourself competitive, that’s vital, um! So how do? How do you market and sell yourself to future employees so now that we’ve identified what the issue is and what’s prob what we’re probably going to be dealing with for the foreseeable future and it’s an employer’s market, because there’s so many people out there that, with you Know the highest of qualifications that they can choose from.
How do you then set yourself up to be able to market yourself to these employees? Is it’s no different than the real estate market? When you know it’s a buyer’s market or a seller’s market? Well, it’s a psychological thing.
Initially, you have to come into tune with.
Okay, i’m now in career transition.
I need to alter my uh mindset because i am a product and i’m sending that product to the market.
So the package is your resume and your linkedin profile and other social media platforms.
Your personal brand, we’ll talk a little bit about that in a minute but um.
So you you need to think of i’m going to send myself to the market now for introverts and certain disciplines like um human resources, believe it or not, uh finance engineers who are more more introverted and less inclined to sell themselves and talk about themselves.
That’s important talk about how you have a value.
Everybody has a value just like everything we when we go into the shops, everything is priced.
Everything on the shelf is priced and you are priced.
What is your value? Don’t undersell yourself either in a recession.
It is actually okay to move laterally or maybe take a step down a little bit because everybody’s going to remember this recession for many many years hiring authorities in another 10, 15 years, they’re gon na know all 2020 was a recession.
So it’s okay, but in a good time don’t you can go laterally and or you should go up, but so we’re a product and they the package is that resume and a resume today is just as important as it was when i first started.
Writing resumes 26 years ago and uh they, but they’ve changed a lot.
They’re, not responsibility based they’re, now uh performance-based you’re going to be hired because you can make the money simple as that: how much money can you make me if you’re a sales guy sales guys? Ironically and you’ll find this very funny, sales guys are the world’s worst resume.
Yes, that’s why you had to do mine.
I mean i see this is classic.
I see so many sales resumes without any sales statistics in there, whether that be the currency of what a country pounds euro dollars or wherever or percentiles.
I see zip well, i’m not going to hire somebody who can’t tell me how much they sell or what percent market share they capture or what profit the you know, there’s various ways to skin the cat when you’re doing sales statistics, as you will know, you know, In your case, it’s volumes of unit vehicle units and things like that, but yeah, sales, marketing and human resources are the three world’s worst resume: writers, wow, sales, marketing and human resources yeah.
So that’s beyond what whatever we think yeah.
So do you think human resources and engineers just think their fancy resumes with all the designations will sell them instead of being able to actually articulate and market themselves? I think so.
Yeah human resources live off their uh.
Their reputation nobody’s gon na touch me or i’m good, in what i do and uh yeah, but you know, human resources are normally not in this, so much in this recession.
This is an interesting phenomena in this in this recession, so human resources and finance are normally in recessions, always the first one to be dropped because they’re non-revenue generating – but i haven’t seen so many um finance and um and human resource exits yet, but i think they Will come yeah, it’s probably a little early, and i hope it doesn’t happen.
You know and we can recover it’s.
You know some with some.
You know decent time time frame.
So how is this approach of taking yourself to the market that on identifying that you’re a product – and you have to get yourself polished up to take yourself to the job market? How does this approach um different from a few months ago? I mean obviously pre-culford what were we doing a few months ago, the or that we should do differently now? Well, the processes remain the same um, the job search process.
You just need to be more uh, overt and more aggressive in your job search.
I mean i’m one of my many certifications is i teach people how to do job, search and uh here in canada, only eight to nine percent of jobs are advertised in the us, it’s something like 19 and europe, it’s about the mid-20s uh, but but you you Need to go and uncover those hidden jobs, even more so because every job on workopolis monster um, indeed a looter career builder, all of all the job boards uh, there’s probably right now: 2 500 applying for each job, wow, yeah, so you’re in a competition with two Thousand five hundred two thousand four hundred and ninety nine other people, but you need to go and hunt those hidden jobs and uh.
You know and then market yourself, so networking networking, unfortunately we’re not allowed to you, know networking and shaking hands, because i’m a great believer in shaking hands and yeah.
I know all the different methods of shaking hands with different cultures, which is important too.
I think we did talk about that in the last episode.
That’s very, very important, very important yeah um.
So you have to know you even have to know how to hand your business card to different different ways.
You know in the eastern cultures you hand it like this, you don’t uh, you don’t hand it like that, and then you know networking is an art in itself for the last networking and that’s one of the things i miss about um about that about not not Being able to get out and networking i like helping others and and uh sharing my knowledge, that’s why i’m on this show, because i i have a wealth of knowledge that i want to share, because it’s valuable to everybody, particularly right now, right now, more so right Now so tell me, you you’ve just mentioned an interesting statistic there about um the job to the job, search, uh or availability to what’s being posted or advertised ratio is dramatic.
It’s like literally half of the us and about a third of in europe like.
Why is it so? Why in canada is it so low? I have no idea really.
It started when i first started running resumes 26 years ago and then moved more into coaching and resume writing the combined um.
It was about uh 11 to 12.
It’s steadily come down, but it’s steadily coming down in other countries, so advertised jobs, so that includes uh all the advertisers job boards, all the national newspapers and then all the corporate websites.
So it’s a very small um small minority.
I mean i i want one thing: i do question people on when they call me and say: oh i’m not getting a job, you know blah blah blah.
I’ve been on they’ve, been on career transition for nine months.
I say well tell me how you’re doing your job search and they say, uh.
Well, you know what do you? What do you use every day? Well, i use linkedin, i use a looter.
I use uh, indeed um and that’s about it right.
I ask a leading question: they say yeah, that’s it i said.
Well, what do you think they account for of the overall hundred percent and they say? Oh, you know uh.
Eighty percent, i said: hmm, you better be sitting down, it’s quite the reverse.
Yeah get sat down first because i’m gon na have a wake-up call for you, and some people are like astounded and then you, you watch my messaging on social media.
I broadcast that often, but so even some people who are connected with me and i’m very well connected on all platforms, extremely well connected um.
They still don’t understand it or they haven’t read it, they haven’t digested it because they see no need for it.
You know uh they they, they don’t think they’re going to be they’re blase.
They don’t think they’re going to be laid off, um, terminated, canned or dismissed or whatever you want to call it.
It’s various terms, but yeah every job.
Every job today is temporary.
There’s no full-time job don’t be disposed of immediately and people in in in february march and april.
You know what you’re so right, martin, because on march 23rd, yeah of 2020 and we’ll all remember days, lots of dates in 2020, when i we literally had to turn the lights off in the dealership and could not go back in oh, my god.
That was scary.
I’m like what we we we have, we have to go home, we have to close the business and leave it behind and go home and and do nothing.
You can’t do anything about it and it’s almost like our lives were not our own.
We were not in control suddenly off all the things we took for granted like getting up and going to work right every day the world has changed and your your products, you can’t sell them online, because people want to touch and feel them, and they want to Drive them test drive them, so it’s a bit different from other.
You know it’s tough and yeah.
You can only do so much online.
I mean there is limited sales online, but at the end of the day, it’s proof that people want to test drive cars and they want to come and touch and feel because the minute we reopened um early may or mid-may.
We were like inundated with deals and we went on to actually have the best june.
We ever had as a result, so so definitely point taken.
So what i took from your last uh explanation there uh and about the ratios of job posts versus um applications.
Um is people shouldn’t depend on the electronic, medium or the sites or for people to be called.
You need to get up off your butt frankly and start knocking indoors networking making calls yourself right.
You can’t play the sit and wait game exactly yeah.
Well, my philosophy is the day you land, your next job is the day to start your next job search.
Now, that’s very tough and people can’t accept that.
But you know what several of my clients have accepted it because they’ve been in that situation um.
So you you need to network and build your linkedin profile.
This is very people can’t can’t get a hold of this.
You need to still manage your career while you’re gainfully employed, because those i can see it all the time, those that manage their careers while they’re gainfully employed um, then when they are terminated, let go whatever laid off um.
They pick up the pieces very, very quickly.
Very quickly yeah yeah and they should always have their resume updated.
So you know we’re always creating those success stories, um and you can just add to them or just keep them in a brag book at home, and then you know when you’re ready to update your resume, be like that.
Rather than voluminous amount of hours i mean and they’re able to pick up their pieces because they’re connected they are engaged yeah.
You know and they’re networking and they’re always learning and you know commenting and engaging with others.
So you you’re easily identifiable, and you stand out more with that type of approach.
So so we’re talking about some of the differentiating factors um during the application process and the in and so on, and it’s easy to for a lot of candidates to fall back on corporate jargon.
So let’s say now: you’re in an interview: okay and um, you made you alluded to the to the hr specialist or the engineer and they’re they’re, going into an interview and they’re using all the corporate jargon.
All the big words.
How should you balance um? The corporate jargon versus just being creative and being unique in an interview.
Well, you everybody’s unique, and i try and get the get that over to people.
Everybody has a unique promise of value.
That’s part of their personal brand yeah.
They should uh.
You know sprinkle their corporate jargon, their acronyms or whatever, within the body of that email.
Other uh interview, sorry um, but people also get an interview is just it’s a scary thing.
People still get scared, but basically i boil it down to an interview.
Is a meeting of the minds? It’s a conversation between two people, or maybe a group of people um to see whether you’re a fit and cultural fit.
Today is very very what happens around the water cooler if we get if we ever get back to that water.
Cooler but uh no uh, you know fit, is very, very important and uh.
So an interview is a meeting of the mines just see if you’re you’re the fit you’re, the one.
So don’t get, don’t get.
You know.
I know it get flat.
People get flustered and whatever, but think about it, just as a dialogue, a conversation between a group of people or two people and uh.
Those interviews can go for anything from 45 minutes to an hour and a half normally and um.
They can be some of the interviews you can go to sadly, eight or nine interviews, yeah and that course of logistics for that yeah and and increasingly uh in interviews, you’re actually being vetted by even peers right, not just superiors yeah right and many people within a Company because, like you’re saying it’s more about a cultural fit rather than you know as much as it might be, or more so than your your actual designations or qualifications.
Because if there’s no fit, you can have all the qualifications in the world yeah.
And it’s going to be huge issues, so so with that said, um martin.
What is the big picture here that you’re painting when it comes to marketing one’s self in the 21st century? If i, if i can, leave the viewers with nothing else, but this manage your career right now, your employer never manages your career.
You can say they do, but you know what you’re just a dollar value or euro value a pound value on their balance sheet.
So when they want to downsize when they want to restructure and they restructure in good times as well, when they want to go in a different direction, who goes out the door, who’s, the most expensive asset, the human resources, so you’re out the door.
So if you take away nothing else from this podcast this webcast, please please manage your career.
So what do you do? You have an up-to-date resume make sure it’s that ats, the applicant tracking system friendly, because it’s now read by sadly a computer.
It’s not read by a human being, even at the c-suite level, generally have an active social media presence.
So definitely you’ve got to be on linkedin.
If you aren’t on linkedin and you’re a professional, my my take on it professionally is you are committing career suicide.
It’s that important is that important.
Even facebook now is becoming such a search engine for talent and twitter.
If you’re in sales and marketing you’ve got to be on twitter and then um network so have a list of companies.
You want to go and work for um, and why do you want to go and work for them? They maybe have a great product.
They may have a service offering.
They may have a great culture.
They may doubt it in today’s economy going ipo to the public market um, but there are some reasons why you want to go.
We all have companies where we would like to work so so start networking in that environment.
And then, if you want to find out about that corporate culture, here’s one tip don’t go to the hiring authority go to other and through using linkedin connect with other people.
In that company, where you want to go and work and network with them and ask them all about the culture, do your research and then you will be far more prepared because you will probably know just as much about the corporate culture.
If you’ve done your research as the interviewer yeah and that that that’s so vital today, because if you go into a company, you know it’s either one of two approaches: you’re, you know with the dare and the headlight approach or so you’re totally uncomfortable, yeah or you’re.
There, because you are prepared and you’ve done, some research you’ve done some networking and you’re asking intelligent questions of the potential employer.
That goes a long way.
I mean it’s a totally different conversation.
It’s a you know yep, when that is the case.
So so so three things and there’s been many tips.
I’ve taken from you so far, so we’re talking about definitely understand that your interview is really a meeting of the minds.
It’s not you know all you know based on statistics and accomplishments.
Uh it’s about.
Is there a fit uh? Is there a cultural, fit, etc? And, second, is that your employer should never be the one managing your your career or determining whether you get a raise or whether you you know you got a promotion or whatever you have to take control of managing your career.
And, thirdly, is networking um, networking and research and if you’re, going in for an interview or you’re thinking about doing that start, networking and learning about the organization and uh be prepared, because i think, if you’re prepared going in number one, it says that you’ve taken the Time to do the research and shows that you’re interested right and it shows that you’re prepared so interest preparation research.
I think those are key key points for me.
There martin yeah um, i use uh, the boy scouts motto be prepared, you know be prepared for anything, and one thing i just didn’t mention you.
You should also network with it if you’re an aspiring business leader and you’re an emba, also an executive master of business administration, which i’m a global expert in or anybody in the mining sector.
You need to network and build build relationships with executive recruiters, but don’t just build them retain them.
So every six months or so, you need to um send that executive recruiter.
You build rapport with when you’re in career transition or about to be transitioned and then build the builder, build that relationship and then maintain that relationship, because, like me, an executive recruiter and i work extensively with executive, recruiters they’re.
My best referrals and i i refer candidates to them um.
They don’t just want to know you when you’re in uh career transition.
They want to know you when you’re having fun so send them a you know a success story or how you’ve delivered or made x number of uh dollars or streamlined operations or introduce new systems or eliminated head count or introduce new products product launchers.
Whatever so maintain those relationships, it’s a we’re in a relationship age.
Failure to maintain relationships is not good.
Well, that’s that’s some huge advice here, so building relationships, maintaining relationships with executive, um, headhunters or career career platforms, um yeah and i’ve seen this come full circle.
With myself as well, i mean you and i now i think i’ve known you now about eight or nine years, and you were initially referred to me just after i got on linkedin back about eight nine years ago by another colleague and uh back then i don’t.
I don’t think you were as busy traveling globally, but you were definitely busy and um.
You know you helped me to get my resume uh and my linkedin profile.
You know in a certain in a certain way, just when i was getting ready to launch my book, and i can certainly see where the structure of my resume and the areas that we focused on and you’ve always talked about.
The networking and you know and doing things a certain way i think it just uh means so much.
It makes a total difference between this type of relationship where we can reach out to each other years later right and still uh, share ideas and connect, uh refer, etc.
So this is what it’s all about.
So you touched on something earlier: uh, martin on brandon personal branding yeah, where brandon is.
This is a buzzword, that’s thrown around a lot these days and it’s it’s very valid today and even if you’re, an entry level um coming out of university or college.
This broader image use will help you to get that coveted position just like researching and networking about the company.
So do you recommend that um personal branding and and having that speed more than the conventional resume or like or or are they on par? Okay? So i’m i’m really passionate about personal branding very passionately.
So a personal brand is basically your unique promise of value.
What is so special about everest? What is so special about raj? What is so special about mary every one of those people you and everybody else is unique.
What is your competitive edge? Why should i, if i was in a hiring position, choose you raj, mary, paul, michael whatever, so it’s your unique promise of value.
It’s a compelling sales proposition, your statement, a value, add a competitive edge on why i should engage you.
You have to live up to it, think of something out of the sky and then not live up to it, and you also have to put that on your websites on your on your all your social media.
You should also put it on your linkedin profile and definitely your resume and your cover letter so stick to it, build it and really market it and even have it on your personal business card.
I’m all i’m a great believer.
I know we don’t give away business cards too much right now, sadly, because we’re not meeting people but business cards still play an important element and so market your personal brand.
It’s your unique promise of value your differentiator, your competitive edge because you put a bunch of accountants together, they’ve all got cpas and maybe other designations, and they all think they’re exactly the same being counters but they’re, not every one of those people sitting in the audience.
When i give presentations to accountants or engineers or anybody else is unique, so think about why what is so special about you give me a compelling reason why i should call call you, over the other people, you’re the people you’re sitting right next to or socially spaced Yeah, you know this, this resonates so well.
So the takeaway from this question is what is special about you.
So in your personal brand, this is what it needs to display or it needs to come across anyways.
You know what is special about you and your unique promise of value.
That’s that’s a pretty pretty neat way of putting it martin yeah yeah, so it should be.
Um psychologists tell us that the human mind picks up on 15, 17 or 19 words, so try and keep your personal brand statement into an odd number of words and don’t go into an item.
We want something: that’s snazzy, catchy resonating, that we can remember same as when you go to networking and people give that uh.
You know that one minute infomercial we’ve we’ve both both been to networking events, and i can remember some they go on and on.
But you know you keep it snatchy.
I want a very quick.
Why can i remember you absolutely so yeah? No, that’s pretty good um.
So is it too early nowadays, where personal branding is an important part of your? You know your your unique promise of value and your whole value proposition as a candidate to look at uh to searching uh for a job.
Is it too early to start in college or is there or is it too late for some people to start? Oh, no.
That’s a great question and i just actually put something on social media yesterday talking about that, you should start managing your career when you’re in high school and uh and then because so many people a lot of it’s.
Unfortunately, parent pressure or you got to be an accountant because there’s plenty of jobs in the account you ought to do this because there’s plenty of jobs, you know what search and where.
Where is your passion? Where is your enthusiasm and your excitement? So don’t take a degree that is going to be not of use to you when you when you grow up, so you need to start thinking about that when you’re 15, 16, 17 and 18 before going to university, and then you select the university, you select the Degree or the college or the further education is very, very important today.
Having said that, you know what we’re running short of blue collar workers, as well here in canada, in the uh and elsewhere in the world.
So you know i.
I am two of my sons.
Well, one of my sons now is in blue collar and um yeah.
You know what he said.
He has a good career yeah, so i mean – and i don’t think it matters you’re right about that.
The government has been heavily focused on blue collar blue collar workers.
Sure you know programs and and so on, because there is a shortage and it’s such a vital part of the economy, exactly whether it be plumbers, whether it be you know, construction like you, can’t build homes.
Where are people going to live like it’s? It’s a big deal so we’re running short people.
Absolutely that is everything frame, is yeah um.
So what advice would you give for preparing um resumes today, um versus six months ago? Oh yeah! So here again, if you send your resume to one of those jobs online, you are in a far bigger competitive stance than you were five or six months ago.
You know they may have only got 200 resumes now you’re gon na get two thousand five hundred resumes.
So that makes it even more imperative that you have a performance driven uh resume, keep it in in canada maximum of three pages.
If you go to four pages, you reduce your chances of having it read by 93 in the us.
It’s two pages most other countries in the world: it’s so you can go to three pages at the executive level um but uh and the rule of thumb in in resume writing i mean i can keep you here busy till breakfast tomorrow morning, but um uh.
You know i go by pages, so you do two pages or you do three pages.
You don’t do two and a half or two and a third just fill the pages and talk about your successes built around, and i think we when i when i was writing your resume.
I focused on star stories so situation task action result.
How did you achieve those sales statistics or that vehicle volume, or all this, all that and you need to because we’re going to hire people because they can make the money save the money streamline operations, blah blah blah? This goes on and on plus, you need to have the industry related buzzwords the buzzwords pertinent to you that industry and functional related buzzwords, because if your resume gets fed into an ats, an applicant tracking system, it’s a computer and they pull it out as a database.
They pull it out based on buzzwords and remember, you can never beat a computer, but you can at least try and match it.
So an ats friendly resume uh has changed a lot in the last few.
Definitely since you and i were together, definitely your resume will be totally different, um but uh so, but you have to be today, you have to be sharper, you have to be on the ball and there’s no room for an outdated uh resume.
So the word objective or profile on your resume, don’t want to see any shading any underlines uh yeah, it’s very, very particular so so on the ball, as i’m listening to here means the amount of pages not to be two and a half or two, and you Know three quarters, but to be three full pages in canada or two full pages and you’re talking about a 93 reduction in them being read.
If it’s four pages versus three in canada, exactly yeah wow, so i mean i had i i got a screen the other day i had a 20 page resume 20 pages.
It took ages just to come out my printer yeah, so um yeah he’s gone instantly, even though you may be the perfect candidate for that particular job.
So you got to remember you’re applying for jobs.
You may be the perfect candidate for that particular job, but just but because your resume isn’t ats friendly.
You can be counted out of a job where you are 120 of uh have all the skills and the talents for that particular job.
So it’s very very important that you have the up-to-date ats friendly resume so ats friendly, resumes folks uh in the us.
You said two pages work best two complete pages not partially complete in canada; three complete pages right because your chances are diminished from them being read by the ats system or at all significantly if they exceed that – and you were talking about using industrial related buzzwords.
Talk about the situation talk about the accomplishments, talk about the results that you’ve driven sure in in the resumes so um.
No, that’s that’s very.
I mean a lot of great tips, um and obviously i’m learning a lot of stuff right now.
Thank goodness, i don’t think i have to do a resume pretty soon but um.
If, if i were doing the resume now, i’d literally would have to call you again because i would not have known a lot of things that you’re sharing with me now and i’m sure the audience doesn’t either.
So this is a huge, huge um subject: uh right now and a lot for a lot of people.
So when it comes to uh, i think you had alluded to this earlier to never stop.
Building on your resume and yours, your suggestion, even starting especially now going forward, start building on that resume since high school, sure right, yeah and then obviously you transition to college or university, uh and so on and networking um.
So is there anything that you think is vital that we haven’t covered and we’ve covered quite a bit that you, you would want to share with the audience about their resumes as it comes to, as this episode is about how to sell yourself to employers in in The this economy that we’re in yeah sure so so you need to have your encompassing your in your resume.
You need to have your personal brand.
You need to have your soft skills.
Those are your, your, your your personal skills, your hard skills and your accomplishments.
The one thing i haven’t really touched on is uh is um.
It’s a little bit sidebar to to resumes, but uh have a cover letter.
So the resume takes you from today backwards and a cover letter takes you from today forwards.
So it’s written in the personal pronoun, the word i my he or she and then and there’s different types depending on the audience: you’re marketing yourself as to this letter, to introduce yourself to executive recruiters.
Let’s reply to an advert letter, uh networking so hello, mr smith of abc companies, introduced me to you – thinks i will be an ideal whatever uh next one would be direct mail to a decision maker of that particular company and then the fifth one is uh pain.
P-A-I-N, so even in good times last year there were lots of companies experiencing pain.
You might have a skill set that can resolve that pain.
So a couple others resumes and we just need to touch on a linkedin profile.
So i see so many linkedin profiles, half completed a linkedin profile is pageless.
You can go on and on and on you can streamline and it has so many sections.
It’s all.
Each section is uh character, sensitive to a certain numbers, and i have a list here.
Actually of all the different numbers and in the different sections, because i i write profiles, linkedin profiles, um and but you need to fill it right out and be active on linkedin, even when you’re game fully employed because i’ll i’ll make you laugh just cut a few Times, i’ve had people, oh i’ve known, and they got jobs, they could be a client and they didn’t listen to me during the coaching session or they just totally ignored, linkedin and then suddenly on linkedin.
They become active and i haven’t seen them there for about three or four or five years, and so what i do is i pick up the phone and say: oh hi, joe you’ve just been terminated, and this is a deadly silence.
At the other end of the phone, that’s big brother watching you, you know how do they know, i haven’t broadcasted to anybody and i’m quite ashamed of being laid off, so they uh so um.
I say well, i’ve just seen you on linkedin for the first time in four or five years, another silence and they uh yeah.
So you know you, you need to don’t be as active as you were when you’re gainfully employed but um as when you’re unemployed.
But you still need to be active on linkedin.
It’s a tool to you can use for a very cheap price.
I would suggest you upgrade to the um the premium version, because you get extra bells and whistles.
Definitely if you’re in korea transition you need to upgrade uh to the pre to the premium version, but use it use it.
It’s a great tool same as facebook.
We all see business pages appearing in facebook.
A lot of corporate canada corporate us corporate uk are now on facebook and they use it actually more than linkedin wow.
That’s interesting.
I mean all the different trends and between social media platforms, and you know, there’s continuous shifts, as is this platform that we’re on zoom right now, like, oh, my goodness, who would have known right.
You know from two: i think it was 250 um anyways like you.
It went up a hundred fold in terms of usage yeah overnight yeah.
No, i have shares in the zoom – oh yeah, exactly so so quite a few takeaways from me.
So far and i’ll have you summarize and and leave the audience with probably two or three tips before we before we head out so i’ve i mean there’s a lot of caveats here that you’ve thrown out so i’ve taken away, uh, i’m a product, so i’m taking Myself to the market to so so i got ta make sure that i look good on my resume.
I have to do the research i have to have my personal brand set up and personal branding is, as you said.
Actually no.
The first thing you said was the the meeting or the interview is a meeting of the minds.
Okay, that’s that’s what you said and third was your employer never manages your career.
You have to manage your career exactly and by building relationships.
You know with executives and uh, executive, recruiters, etc and sorry retain those relationships and retain those relationships.
Yes, that was a key point and then the other you spoke about was um.
What is so special about you, your your brand, is your personal brand, and your personal brand is about your unique promise of value.
Okay key phrase: your unique promise of value um is about your personal brand.
So what what? What three key tips or four or two? Whatever they are, and i picked up a lot to with those resumes and i’m pretty sure a lot of most of our audience didn’t know about the resumes three pages if you’re in canada, three complete pages, two page complete pages, if you united states to increase significantly Your resumes being read, use industry, buzzwords, etc.
So what are three key takeaways that you would leave the audience with tonight as we wrap up this episode on how to market and sell yourself to future employers? Well, get primarily you’ve got to you’ve, got to just extinguish everything, all the negatives you have about yourself and you’ve got to get into your a sales mode and think you are the best person within your particular function.
Your particular trade, your particular area, um and uh, and and sell yourself sales is the driver for everything i mean in a recession.
By the way you know, sales are is the best for function, because companies need to make money, so sales sales is the best profession, but so you need to get into that sales mode.
So many people are negative on themselves.
They need to twist around or you need to kick in the back or whatever um and get their show on the road, and then they need to after the terminate, because a termination, especially when it comes out of the blue, some people are pre-warned.
But it came out the blue for millions in in february march um they were shocked.
Oh it never happened to me.
I got a good appraisal last month um and i i’m i’m.
I was okay, but no you’re, not um so, and they then get that emotion out of the way you know uh, because it’s emotional you’ve got the anger.
You’ve got the rage of being terminated, get out of the way and then uh you move on and exit plan and execute a job search, um.
So uh.
That is another topic in itself.
A job search is a full time.
Gig, it’s not a part-time sitting on the couch, it’s a full-time appointment, so the more you put into it, the more more effort you put into it.
The more will come come your way.
More effort will come your way, more results.
So 12 hours a day.
I say people 12 hours a day five days a week.
You should be on your job, search, yeah and then um then have your resume up to date.
So so uh get that mindset.
A good sales mindset have a have a resume and have a linkedin profile and be active even when you’re gainfully employed, because even when you’re getting fully employed to say emerald, i’ve heard about you and i’ve got the perfect job for you.
Where’s your resume and you say: oh my gosh – i had it done by martin butler eight years ago.
I think i needed updated about it, but so when you’re stumbling they want a resume that afternoon yeah and you don’t have one ready to give yeah.
So what does that tell them about your personal brand and where you manage your career, yeah uh, huge, huge points, uh martin uh, certainly a lot of food thought here and that these are some key points that our audience can implement.
Can action right now because there’s more of this coming folks, there’s more uncertainty? Um there is a dramatic shift in the economy in economies and the way people do business and uh.
We just have to be ready and if you’re, if your resume’s, not up to date and you’re, not actively networking, i’m not sure, what’s going to be happening, you know other people, the people that are networking for sure and are actively you know, engaged in with their Personal brand and will definitely have a lot more opportunities, because that’s what you’re actually ultimately doing is creating opportunities for yourself right exactly you look after number one.
I remember when i first left police training school.
My foot, my staff sergeant, said to me buckland, look after number one.
You are in charge of yourself when you go out on those streets, those streets of london, uk.
You are in charge of yourself and that’s.
I built a an e-book around that look after number.
One uh, which sounds interesting to read: that’s for sure, so, uh martin.
So how can our listeners find you for those people who want to update their resume, learn more about how to be better prepared, uh in the times ahead, uh and starting right now sure.
Well, i’d be happy to offer anybody who’s listening, uh, a free, no obligation resume critique.
I will give you 20 minutes of my time, but i warn you.
I say it as it is because, like anything you’re going to get one kick of the can it’s first impressions, so there’s a first there’s a free resume or if you’re in europe it’s called a cv, so um free resume cv critique i’ll, go through it.
From top to bottom, you can email it to me: uh martin m-a-r-t-i-n, at an elite resume.
com, so a-n-e-l-i-t-e, r-e-s-u-n, dot-com, so analytic resume.
com, that’s my corporate website.
I have other websites as well, but best thing is to uh link.
Send me a message via linkedin as well.
I’m i call myself a self-proclaimed linkedin junkie, so i’m always i’ve seen you on there at 5 00 a.
m and all the way till late at night.
Yes, i have uh following like.
If i miss a post today, people wonder where is he in hospital or whatever? So yeah um so send me a message on linkedin or send me an email and i’m i’ll be thrilled.
To give you a free, no obligation resume critique, but i do say it as it is because one mistake in a resume and you’re gone, and i’m also give i’ll give you a linkedin audit as well so uh, because uh there again, it’s first impressions account and Recruiters right now, as we speak, even in today’s world are looking for talent right this minute and the one of the platforms they use is linkedin and if you don’t have a fully complete, linkedin, uh page all the way down all the way down to the bottom.
You’re going to miss out on that project that that executive recruiter has – and he may be, the perfect candidate for you – maybe the perfect job for you, wow, don’t miss out folks! Well, um! We want to hear your feedback folks and there’s been so much here that martin has shared with us and he’s indeed a global career expert um.
He definitely helped me with my resume about eight nine years ago, um and then from there.
I used it to update a lot of my linkedin and but the linkedin has evolved because i have evolved and that’s what a career path is is about evolution, it’s not about just sticking where that resume is, or was from eight years ago.
So it’s constantly updating.
Constantly networking and evolving yourself as an individual so that you are marketable and you are evolving your personal brand and we’ve taken a lot of that tonight from martin.
So many great tips that we’re going to share when we uh edit and publish up this episode on the podcast side, as well as when we put it over to youtube.
We’ll have a lot of this information in there and also how to get a hold of martin, because you definitely want to take advantage of him having a look at your resume.
What these free um free sessions that he’s offering tonight, so we always enjoy hearing from you.
So if you have questions feedback, please uh send them to insider thereidmethod.
com and uh.
Please subscribe to itunes soundcloud wherever you get your podcast from and our youtube channel or one of them ever just go to evereldry the youtube channel.
We are now nicely editing and uploading the the podcast there as well, so you can catch them there all branded and edited and um.
We.
We have had so many great guests on the show uh les brown so many times and uh.
Mr martin buckland here for the second time and a couple of times ago, um we had evan carmichael on and we have steve benson coming back again next week as we continue.
Another series of uh shows on how to market and position our sales uh sales reps uh in this economic time.
So it’s very important.
So always i say to you folks, be thoughtful, be intentional and be safe and any last words.
Martin, please manage your career you’re.
Doing everybody a favor everybody around you, your family, your friends, because they all you take your career home and uh.
It manages your it generates money to look after your family and have fun without managing your career.
You won’t have the excitement, the engagement and uh the finances to go with that.
Yeah you’ll certainly have limitations and, as martin said earlier, you have to look after number one exactly absolutely well folks.
This has been the read method: insider podcast episode 73 and where martin buckland here for the uh of elite resumes a world-renowned career expert, just share these insights on how to market and sell yourself uh to future employers and uh.
Just so many key uh caveats, i i you know, encourage you to take some notes and contact.
Martin he’s offering a free 20-minute uh resume critique session, so definitely reach out to him.
So, thank you very much for joining us folks and uh good night and we’ll see you soon.! You .
