Here’s number one. What is something that only 1% of people can do that you can do? What is the position title you are applying for that needs to come across? In today’s episode, we’re going way beyond the basics. No fluff, just real strategies that will help your resume get through the system. My name is Chris Villanueva, I’m the founder of Let’s Eat, Grandma Resume Service. Yes, that’s with a comma. We help job seekers who are looking to get noticed and help them land more interviews in progress forward. Today I’m going to walk you through some smart moves that only 1% of job seekers make. Things like highlighting your unique blend of skills, getting some career highlights in there, and matching your resume to the job description like a pro. If your resume is not getting callbacks, this episode might be the fix. So let’s get right to it.

Chris Villanueva 00:57 
And before we get started, two quick things. Number one, if you’re not subscribed to our Let’s Eat, Grandma Newsletter, do so right away you’re going to get future podcast episodes of free resume critique, free events you can attend, and even special promotions. You’ll thank me later. Head on over to letseatgrandma.com and sign up for a free resume critique. This is what gets you in our system and you can do that today. A major theme of this podcast has been persistence and to continue through the difficult times through the challenging times, and I acknowledge as a host of a career podcast that the job search is one of the most stressful events we can go through in our lives. So if you are in a position right now to where you feel like you’re having a hard time giving you all of my encouragement prayers and hoping that you as the job seeker are doing whatever you can to emotionally support yourself during this time, hoping you’re getting that rest, that quality, family time, food, water, all of it.

Chris Villanueva 01:57
So take care of yourself first, then your job search. Okay? Now onto the specific content of this episode. Should you write for the bots or should you write for humans? First of all, what do I mean by bots? I mean the applicant tracking systems that are sorting and scanning our resumes so that we could eventually get that interview. This is for folks who are applying online. In most cases, at least 90% of the time, we’re going to have our resume scanned through an applicant tracking system. It’s essentially just software that a recruiter can use. So for 10 years that I have been in business, we’ve seen so many changes here. Applicant tracking systems are coming from the stone ages to something more advanced, and as we enter the middle of the century, we’re seeing AI having more of an impact really in how applicants are getting processed as well as on the candidate side, how people are creating their job search documents.

Chris Villanueva 02:57
We’ve seen it all. Now, my philosophy even seeing these changes, this has held the same over the last 10 years and it is this write for the human, but don’t forget the bots. So primarily, primarily we want to write for the human but not forget the reality that if we’re applying online we are going to need those keywords. So in that the applicant tracking system gets you past the first green. Humans are going to be the ones that make the hire. They’re going to be the ones that actually, and they’re really dumb if they don’t do this. I don’t care that we’re in the world of ai, but there is no way in hell that a bot is going to make the ultimate decision to pay you 5,000, one $50,000 a year at least not now, not anytime soon. So you have to write for the human hiring manager who ultimately is going to make the decision.

Chris Villanueva 03:58
Your resume even could get pulled in during multiple stages of the application, not just the beginning. So it’s important to know that you have to write your resume or the human primarily. Okay, so I want to give you some tactical advice on how to write a good resume summary. I think a summary is just, it’s the quintessential section in the resume, the one that I think can speak to so many different things, and I think it represents the resume overall because it’s something that should stand out and it’s something that should also capture certain keywords in your document. So first, let’s think about writing for the human and crafting your resume summary. The goal here when writing for a human should be to say something interesting. So what is your unique value proposition? That’s a phrase I say often in my preaching, so to speak as a resume writer.

Chris Villanueva 04:55
What’s your unique value proposition? Well, here are a menu of options. Here are some things that you can pull from, and you don’t have to include all of these things obviously, and you don’t even have to include multiple ones, but think about what your one thing you might want to use in crafting your unique value proposition. Again, that unique value proposition you can really put anywhere in the resume, but I’m thinking the summary, the thing that sits at the top. So here’s number one. What’s something that only 1% of people can do that you can do? What is something that is your 1%? Did you for example, build and launch an internal leadership accelerator? Blending design thinking and neuroscience adopted by four global regions across four Fortune 500 companies? That is something that I would be blown away that more than a handful of people can say that they’ve done, and I’m not saying that you’re the top 1% in the world.

Chris Villanueva 05:59
I’m saying no. Write something that no one else can include in their summary because I’m telling you, so many people are just putting these generic summaries out there that can speak to millions of people. Every project manager has managed a project under a tight deadline. Every marketing professional, every marketing manager has improved the ROI and revenue of an organization by 20%. So just think about what you have done that no other project manager or marketing manager, wherever you’re applying can say that they’ve done. So think about that. Another thing you can do, and I’ve alluded to it already, is a catchy career highlight. Did you, for example, triple inbound leads in 90 days by launching a zero cost brand campaign powered by LinkedIn influencer partnerships. What was the thing that you were so proud of? That is going to be something that aligns with the job description.

Chris Villanueva 07:03
So don’t just say that you are an expert in LinkedIn influencer partnerships or you’re an expert in launching zero cost brand campaigns. Put a specific highlight that you were able to affect in a specific point in time. Again, don’t be generic, otherwise you’re going to get lost. Okay? Another thing that you could pull from in your menu is advanced expertise. Maybe you want to include some advanced expertise that you possess that show that you are going to be more than competent in this role. You’re just going to crush it. So this could be an MBA, this could be 15 plus years in mastering something. For example, did you bring 18 years of supply chain optimization experience across North America with a Six Sigma black belt fluent in SAP and Oracle SCM? That’s what I mean by advanced expertise. Lastly, think contextually here. Think outside of the box even of all the things that have said here in the last few minutes, think for example that you are applying for a regional director of marketing for a local office space in central Texas.

Chris Villanueva 08:14
If you have lived in that case, breathed and done marketing in San Antonio and Austin only, then maybe that’s something you want to call out. So you can say deeply embedded in central Texas Marketing trends led GTM campaigns in Austin, San Antonio, and Waco for 12 plus years. Tailoring messaging to regional buyer behavior. Again, you are special, and this isn’t some BS stuff that we were told as millennials, like, oh, you get an eighth place trophy. That’s not what I’m saying here. I’m saying every single professional out there has something that only they have done and only that they can do. This is your unique blend and flavor that you need to put on your resume. That’s how you get results, and that’s how you get matched with the best job for you. Okay, now I’m going to quickly touch writing for the A TS and I will rephrase that as writing for the job description because you could pretty much say that those are the same things here.

Chris Villanueva 09:16 
That’s how you get matched up. So the goal here is matching the language as much as possible with the job posting. So the question I want you to ask yourself, again, this is after you’ve done that deep digging to write this solid resume for a human. But after you’ve done that, think scientifically here, think data science a bit. Put that hat on and ask what are the keywords that keep coming up repetitively in my job postings? You can even use tools like Chachi PT to copy paste your job postings and ask it to come up with the biggest themes for keywords here. The things that I know to focus on as a resume writer and as somebody who’s preached about this for a long time, is focus on those hard skills and those hard words that you can imagine people typing in who are a hiring manager here.

Chris Villanueva 10:09
So not great communicator, I know that’s important, but things like SAP, JavaScript marketing Manager, project manager, CSM, the specifics that people are going to be inputting. That’s what you need to be thinking of when coming up with your keyword cloud. Coming up with that theme, again, I’ll emphasize it, I mentioned it already just a second ago, but what is the position title you were applying for? That needs to come across almost always in that summary at the top because your resume is not going to get noticed by the a TS if you can’t match that position title. At least not get something close that is going to register. Okay, I will spend little time here on the a TS because that’s the main point I want to get across is think about that unique value proposition and then as an afterthought, get those keywords implanted, or I should say embedded in your resume in a tactful way.

Chris Villanueva 11:03
Don’t keyword stuff that will make your resume crappier and you’re not going to get hired. So I hope this episode was useful, encouraging, and helped you really through whatever you’re doing with your resume. Again, check out letseatgrandma.com and submit your resume for eight free review, and I will just do my best here in upcoming podcast episodes to continue giving you things that are going to serve you as a job seeker. So thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you next time Career Warrior Podcast. And before you go, remember if you’re not seeing the results you want in your job search, our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at, Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages. We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search and with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention, you’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that are highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster. Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ Thanks, and I’ll see you next time. What is the position title you are applying for.