A Resume Writer By Any Other Name…

 

Looking for alternate job titles for “Resume Writer” for your LinkedIn profile?

Here are some suggestions:

• Career Consultant
• Career Development Specialist
• Career Development Coach
• Career Strategy Consultant
• Career Storyteller
• Career Growth Strategist
• Job Success Specialist
• LinkedIn Profile Expert
• Job Market Advisor
• Senior Resume Writer
• Career Services Consultant
• Resume Optimization Specialist
• Executive Resume Specialist
• Career Coaching Expert
• Job Search Coach
• Job Search Consultant
• Job Search Strategist
• Interview Preparation Advisor
• Interview Coach
• Job Market Specialist
• Job Search Advisor
• Job Application Specialist
• Personal Branding Expert
• Professional Bio Creator
• Client-Focused Consultant
• Professional Resume Writer
• Resume Project Manager
• Career Transition Specialist

Mindset Monday: Avoiding Imposter Syndrome

You’ve worked hard, you’ve taken the courses, you’ve learned and experienced a lot — but somehow it all just doesn’t feel real. Whenever you are praised for your skills, talents, or accomplishments, you feel fearful that you will be exposed as a fraud — even though you are obviously not a fraud. 

 
This, my friend, is imposter syndrome. Sadly, this psychological syndrome affects women at a higher rate than men, but it exists in all sexes in all classes. About half of all people experienced imposter syndrome at one time or another, according to one poll. 
 
If you suffer from this syndrome, it’s important to recognize it and work toward eradicating it from your life. In fact, recognizing it is the primary key to fighting it.

• Retrain Your Thoughts. If you ever think things like, “this was all luck” about your success, it’s time to retrain your thoughts. Instead of thinking that, go over the reasons you could do what you did. It was more than likely due to the experience, education, and action you took. 

• Assign Value. When you can verify or quantify the value that you provide to others, then you can help your mind accept that what you do is valuable and not a matter of just luck. Record data about the impact your work does for people. (Number of interviews generated, jobs you’ve helped them achieve, salary increases, etc.)

• Read About It. There are numerous books about imposter syndrome. These books will help you understand whether you have the syndrome and what to do to help you move past it. One to check out is “Ditching Imposter Syndrome: How To Finally Feel Good Enough and Become The Leader You Were Born To Be,” by Clare Josa. 

• Get Professional Help. If none of the advice given helps, you can go to a therapist or find a life coach to help you overcome imposter syndrome. Many counselors are trained in this syndrome, and many life coaches are very aware of it and now know to help you overcome it.

Imposter syndrome can cause you to miss opportunities because you think you’re not ready for it. There are many people out there doing what you want to do and doing it poorly without any issues. You’re an expert, and no matter how much you try to talk yourself out of it, you have the expertise and deserve the kudos that you get. 

Career Industry Conference Update: 2024

This year (2024) marks the 25th anniversary of my first resume writing conference appearance (the 1999 NRWA Conference in New Orleans).

I’ll be attending the 2024 NRWA conference virtually (and you can too – link below).

This is an update to a post from September 2023 (which was an update to a November 2019 post (“Have You Ever Been to a Resume Writing Conference?”), which built on a post from August 2011 (“When Is the Omaha Conference?”)

The 2023 NRWA Conference was awesome — great content, fabulous friends, and an incredible destination (Colorado Springs, CO). 

Here’s the breakdown of where the national resume writing organizations have had their conferences in recent years. (I’ve bolded the ones I attended.)

The National Resume Writers' Association (NRWA):
2024 – Providence, RI (scheduled for Oct. 8-10, 2024 with virtual attendance available as well) 

2023 – Colorado Springs, CO

2022 - New Orleans, LA 

2021 – NRWA Virtual Conference

2020 – NRWA Virtual Conference
2019 - NRWA Conference at Sea (Cruise to the Bahamas)
2018 - Seattle, Washington
2017 - Chicago, Illinois
2016 - Annapolis, Maryland
2015 - Charlotte, North Carolina
2014 - Denver, Colorado
2013 - Chicago, Illinois
2012 - Charleston, South Carolina
2011 - Portland, Maine
2010 - Fort Worth, Texas
2009 - Annapolis, Maryland
2008 - San Diego, California
2007 - Savannah, Georgia
2006 - Phoenix, Arizona
2005 - Stamford, Connecticut
2004 - Nashville, Tennessee
2003 - Seattle, Washington
2002 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2001 - San Antonio, Texas
2000 - Las Vegas, Nevada
1999 - New Orleans, Louisiana
1998 - Chicago

This year (2024) will be my 14th NRWA conference (and third one I’m attending virtually).

Career Directors International:
2016 - Present: No conference
2015 - Entrepreneurial Success Secrets Live for Career Professionals: Orlando, Florida
2014 - Global Career Empowerment Summit: SOAR — Orlando, Florida
2013 - Global Career Empowerment Summit: Your Big Breakthrough — Orlando, Florida
2012 - Global Career Empowerment Summit: Blaze Your Trail — San Diego, California
2011 - Global Career Empowerment Summit: Jump On Board the Success Express — Savannah, Georgia
2010 - Global Career Empowerment Summit: You Selected & We Delivered: The Most Outrageously Power-Packed Career Conference Yet — San Diego, California
2009 - Global Career Empowerment Summit: Take Your Career to New Heights — Orlando, Florida
2008 - Annual Conference: Get Super with CDI — Seattle, Washington
2007 - Annual Conference: The Future is You! — San Antonio, Texas
2006 - Annual Conference: Live the Dream — Orlando, Florida (PRWRA)
2005 - Annual Conference: Play to Win — Las Vegas, Nevada (PRWRA)
2004 - Indianapolis, Indiana (PRWRA)
2003 - New Orleans (PRWRA)
2002 - Atlanta, Georgia (when the organization was still PRWRA)

(Thank you to Laura DeCarlo for help assembling the conference titles and locations!) I was never able to make a CDI conference (they were often in October and conflicted with my UNO Hockey obsession).

Career Management Alliance (no longer in business as of August 2011):
2011 - Las Vegas, Nevada
2010 - New Orleans, Louisiana
2009 - San Antonio, Texas
2008 - Minneapolis, Minnesota
2007 - Louisville, Kentucky
2006 - ??
2005 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (when it was still Career Masters Institute)
2004 - Atlanta, Georgia (CMI)
2003 - Kansas City, Missouri (CMI)
2002 - San Diego, California (CMI)

Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches
2025 – Chicago, Illinois (Thrive 2025)

2024 – Orlando, Florida (Thrive Orlando 2024)

2023 – Orlando, Florida (Thrive Orlando 2023)

2022 – Clearwater, Florida (Thrive 2022)

2021 – Virtual Conference

2020 – No conference due to COVID

2019 - St. Pete Beach, Florida
2005-2018: No conference
2004 - St. Pete Beach, Florida
2003 - Las Vegas, Nevada
2002 - Dallas, Texas
2001 - Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida
2000 - Toronto, Canada
1999 - Colorado Springs, Colorado

PARW/CC held conferences from 1999-2004 but then discontinued conferences in 2004. The conferences returned in 2019. The 2025 one is the first conference for the organization being held outside of Florida since 2003.

80% off Pricing Right Course (Birthday Flash Sale)

It’s my birthday on Saturday and — in honor of turning 51 — I’m running a flash sale offering more than $200 off my signature course, Pricing Right: Price Your Career Services with Confidence!

Through midnight Central on my birthday (9/21), if you are one of the first 51 people to take advantage of this flash sale, you will get the FULL COURSE for just $51 (that’s 80% off the regular price of $259!).

The course is designed to help anyone who struggles with pricing their services — from new resume writers to veterans.

The “Pricing Right” course is nine lessons, and each lesson is an average of 15 minutes long. You can work your way through the lessons at your own schedule (it’s self-paced).

When you complete the course, you’ll have a CONCRETE basis for setting your prices (new clients & returning projects), strategies for communicating your pricing (including how to handle push-back on your pricing as well as how to communicate price increases), and you’ll be able to avoid the most common mistakes in pricing your career industry services. There’s also a special lesson on raising your prices — critical these days as our cost of doing business continues to increase!

Here’s what colleagues have to say about the course:



But don’t wait to enroll. There are only 51 enrollments available during this special flash sale. Enroll now.

You can watch a preview of the course here:



If you’ve ever struggled with pricing your career services (and let’s be honest … we all have!), this course is for you. Get the practical, actionable information you need to set your prices so you can hit your revenue goals the final three months of 2024.

Remember, this sale price is only available until midnight Saturday – and only for the first 51 career industry colleagues who sign up. Enroll here!

Mindset Monday: Have You Considered a Vision Board?

One of the ways you can increase your positivity and grow your success mindset is to create and use a vision board. A vision board is pictorial of the success you want to achieve. The main point is that you want the vision board to be easily visible and usable after it’s created. 

• Know What You Want. The first course of action for you is to know what type of goals you are working on for your vision board. Some people like making an “overall” vision board that depicts their entire life, but it can also be helpful to create one for each individual goal that you have so that you can focus on one thing at a time. 

• Set Your Goals and Objectives. When you know which life area you’ll focus on, write down your goals and objectives. Use the SMART goal format so the goals you make also have tasks and actions associated with them.  

• Choose Your Tools. Now that you know what you are creating, choose the tools you will use. Plan to look at the vision board daily. It’s not going to do any good if you can’t see it when you need motivation. You can choose a print format or use a Pinterest board.

• Choose Images / Words That Support Your Goals. As you choose the pictures and words that depict and support your goals, store them in one spot, such as Dropbox or a folder. Write down or copy words that help support your goals, too, because you’ll want to connect the images with affirmations too.

• Design the Vision Board. Now that you have all the information and materials, start preparing your vision board. Focus on the feeling of meeting your goals. Feel it as you create it. 

• Look at The Vision Board Every Day. Look at your vision board every morning before starting your day and even every night as you consider your actions and set up your day for tomorrow. The only way your vision board will help you is if it’s tied to the actions you take each day.

Finally, allow yourself to experience emotions about how you’re going to feel when you succeed by meeting that goal. 

Resume Writers & Estimated Taxes

If you’re a self-employed resume writer, then you are responsible for paying your own taxes. In contrast, if you work for someone else then taxes are automatically taken out of your paycheck. Depending on your annual income and your circumstances, self-employed iresume writers may be required to pay taxes on a quarterly basis.

Check with your accountant or refer to past tax returns to determine if you can pay annually or need to pay quarterly. There’s no disadvantage to paying quarterly. You can, on the other hand, be assessed fees if you decide to pay annually but earn too much (and should have paid quarterly).

The 1040ES is a form that will help you estimate your quarterly taxes. It’s available here –

https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1040-es

You can also learn more information about quarterly tax payments and what is required here - https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estimated-taxes

Once you know how much you need to pay every three months, it’s time to create a plan to save for it. This isn’t your emergency savings plan. This is a different savings plan designed to take the financial pain and stress out of paying your taxes.

Step One: Where Will You Save The Money?
Unlike an emergency savings plan, your tax savings doesn’t need to be stored in a separate account. If you keep good records you can simply keep your tax savings in your standard business checking account. If you believe you might be tempted to spend the money, then open up another savings account specifically for your quarterly taxes. 

Step Two: Weekly or Monthly?
The easiest way to build your savings is to establish automatic deductions. For example, you may have $500 deducted from your business checking account each month and added to your tax savings account. To determine how much to deduct, simply divide your anticipated quarterly tax payment by three months or 12 weeks.

If you are keeping all of your money in one account, you’ll want to make sure you build up the amount in your account on a monthly basis so when tax time comes around you have enough money ready.

Step Three: Add It to Your Budget
Treat your quarterly taxes as any other business expense and incorporate your monthly tax savings into your monthly budget. By doing this, you’ll make sure that you always account for the expense and never fall short. When tax time rolls around you’ll be stress free and in the black.

Saving for your quarterly taxes may not be fun, and there are certainly other things you’d like to do with the money. However, by creating your quarterly tax plan you will remove the stress of paying taxes and you make sure you’re not hit with a large payment (and possibly even financial penalties) at the end of the year.

Case Study: Shortcuts in Resume Writing

 

SHORTCUTS IN RESUME WRITING – A CASE STUDY

A client called me yesterday to tell me he had a first interview on Monday with one of his Top 4 Target Companies and that it went well. He’s been asked back for an in-person interview next week. 

There were a couple of tools I used on his project that were helpful “shortcuts.” This client isn’t my “ideal” client these days. (I work mostly with Marketing, Advertising, Public Relations, and Sales – or “MAPS” clients — but he was a returning client from 2014, so I was happy to work with him again.)

His previous resume (2014) had focused on his role as Warehouse Manager/Shipping & Receiving Manager (that resulted in him landing a job initially as Maintenance Technician with his current company). I did an update to his resume in 2016 for an internal role and he was promoted to Warehouse Manager. He was then promoted to QA Inspector/Lead Technical Writer (without a resume update). Unfortunately, last year his employer lost a major contract. He was given the opportunity to switch to a manufacturing position or be laid off. He decided to change to the manufacturing role (with a pay cut), but wanted to start looking for new opportunities. That’s when he reached out to me.

Quality Assurance is the focus for his current job search, but it required completely overhauling his resume. (Which was necessary anyway, with the 7-year timeframe between his last work with me and this job search.)

To gather information for his new career focus, I used one of Evelyn Salvador’s Career Worksheets. The “Documentation: Manufacturing and Production” worksheet provided insightful questions to gather information about his most recent relevant role (2019-2023). I provided him with a checklist to identify the keywords relevant to his experience, and incorporated some of the Documentation questions into my questionnaire. 

Once I had his information, it was time to tackle the resume writing. Lately, I’ve been starting the writing process by browsing Michelle Dumas’ Distinctive Resume Templates to find one that feels like a fit for the client, job target, and industry. I decided on the Blue Collar Resume Template (with Blue Collar Coordinating Documents – resume addendum, cover letter, and references templates). The templates are visually appealing and ATS-friendly and I find it easy to populate them (changing the color scheme with an appropriate color for the client — in this case, blue to denote “trust, security, and stability.”

I also had this client take a DISC profile assessment (I’m a DISC administrator through Jane Roqueplot and Profiling Pro), which I culled insights from to include in his resume. 

He used his new resume to apply to a handful of positions last week and got a call last Friday to set up a phone interview on Monday (yesterday). Because it had been a while since he had interviewed (especially for an outside role), I sent him a couple of resources over the weekend to help him prepare. One was my “Pre-Interview Worksheet & Checklist” (a Fillable Worksheet). I also sent him my guide to Virtual Interviews (based on this Pass-Along Materials document: Jobseeker’s Guide to Virtual Interviews). 

I had previously sent him my “Be the STAR of Your Career Story” worksheet to put together a couple of accomplishment stories while I worked on writing the resume. He reported back that he had used a story about reducing production time from three months per unit to three weeks and said the interviewers were impressed. 

In the phone interview, they basically offered him the job (they asked him how much it would take to get him to move on from his current employer), so his next step is doing salary research and prepping for the in-person interview. I’m going to be sending him some resources to help with that later today.

Resources mentioned in this case study: 
Evelyn Salvador’s Career Worksheets 
Distinctive Resume Templates 
( use promo code 50offbearesumewriter on the Distinctive Resume Templates website to save 50% on your first purchase of any amount.) 
DISC Testing 
Tools for Job Search 
Pass-Along Materials Archive 2011-2020 

What did you think of this case study? Are there resources you use as shortcuts? What are they? Comment below!

Mindset Mondays: Exercise to Practice Gratitude

 

Practicing gratitude can go a long way to helping you feel happier and more successful in life. The most interesting thing about having a success mindset is that it is indeed a mindset. Studies have been done on numerous people throughout history that show that even people you may not see as successful can feel successful if they have the right mindset. 

• Write It Down. Keep a small notebook by your bedside, your desk, or in your glove box. Whenever you feel a wave of gratitude, write it down. This helps you to remember the experience and even relive it when the need arises.

• Record It. Almost everyone can record themselves today with smartphones and tablet computers. If you don’t want to write down your feelings, you can record them. Whenever you feel grateful, or need to feel it, make a short two minute recording to document it. 

• Focus on It. Allow your mind to focus on all the gratitude you feel, but in a tremendous way. Amplify the feeling by describing it as fully as possible. How does your morning walk feel? How does your morning coffee smell? What do you feel when you watch your sleeping child?

• Say It Aloud. Even if you’re not writing it down or recording it, you can still state your gratitude out loud. 

• Feel It. Don’t just write down or record and state your gratitude. Take a moment to feel it. Focus carefully on how it feels to breathe in the fresh air, and take the moment in fully. Immerse yourself in the feelings as much as you can. 

• Share It. When you are feeling gratitude, it’s a great time to tell others about it. When you share your feelings of thanks to the world either by calling someone and telling them that you’re thankful for them or by sharing on Instagram or Facebook or X/Twitter your gratitude, you’ll feel it more fully. 

Focus on what makes you happy and less on what makes you unhappy. It may seem silly, but it’s backed by science. Your thoughts control your feelings, and you control your thoughts. It’s that simple.

We’re expecting our first big snowfall of the season today … they’re saying 4-7 inches – so I’m going to be grateful for the moisture … and that Jon and I work from home! 

What are YOU feeling grateful for today? Comment below!

Mindset Mondays: The Importance of SMART Goals

 

Today’s tip is using GOALS to direct your MINDSET. After all, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. Right?

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times, right? Everyone you know — at least all the life coaches and teachers — want you to learn how to make your goals so that they’re manageable and do-able. Learning how to create goals correctly will change your life. 
 
The best-known method for creating goals that you can achieve is the SMART goal method. 
 
The SMART acronym stands for:

• Specific. State what is precisely required to meet your goal. 
• Measurable.  Include a number that enables you to measure the results. 
• Achievable. Set goals that you can realistically accomplish in the time set using the resources and methods you have available. 
• Realistic. The outcome must be truly possible. Some people like to use the word relevant here because the goal must be relevant to the big picture you have in mind. 
• Time-Bound. We all expand our time to match what is allowed, so setting a time limit is essential to realizing your goals. 

You can even expand this acronym to the acronym SMARTER and add two more criteria, if you want to be great at making goals that result in success. These two additional letters stand for “evaluated” and “reviewed,” — which makes sense because the only way you can know for sure if something you do works is to evaluate it and review it. 
 
Once you do that, you can tweak and change things to improve your goal setting for future goals. The practice of using the SMART goal method for all your goal setting needs will improve every time you start setting up your goals and objectives because you’ll be able to use past experiences to guide you. 
 
No matter how small your objective is, try using the SMART goal technique to help you create goals that really can be reasonably met by you.