You are techY podcast

Ellen Twomey: You are listening to the You Are Techy podcast, episode number 43.

Voiceover: Welcome to the You Are Techy podcast, where it’s all about growing in your techy-ness so you can find the tech job of your dreams. And now your host, technology learning coach Ellen Twomey.

Ellen Twomey: This episode is sponsored by our new free training – 3 Steps to a Flexible, High-Paying Tech Job – The Dream Job Every Mom Wants. In it I’ll cover the requirements for a flexible job, especially if you are a mom, how to build your 6 figure salary trajectory, why tech is great for moms and why moms are great for tech. Join me this Tuesday for this helpful and fun free training – 3 Steps to a Flexible, High-Paying Tech Job. Sign up at youaretechy.com/3steps that’s -Y-O-U-A-R-E-T-E-C-H-Y.COM/ THE NUMBER 3 S-T-E-P-S

Welcome to the show. I’m so grateful you’re tuning in today. I promised to deliver on a topic I know is important too, because I hear a lot of questions about this: 

How do I create a tech resume that will stand out that will truly be outstanding and help me get noticed by the right type of organization or client?

I’m going to talk about resumes generally, but in the age of LinkedIn and remote work, I’m going to touch on some specific LinkedIn things too. If you’re not on LinkedIn yet, go ahead and correct that now, because regardless of what your career goals are, it will help you to have a profile and to start networking with people, [00:02:00] by connecting with them over LinkedIn.

I’m going to teach you some steps today that will help you overcome any of these fear objections that might be popping into your head, like I don’t have any current work experience or relevant work experience. I don’t have new skills that will be helpful to my career goals. I’ll wait until I’m looking for a job.

Being on LinkedIn is really important because it will help you build the career you want. And none of those situations are relevant because your career takes a lifetime to create, and it’s going to go through different phases. You don’t have to be at any specific life stage to begin creating the career of your dreams. You can start doing it now. 

Today, we’re going to talk about seven things: 

– Customizing your URL

– The title of your role

–  Summary

–  Your industry 

– Your most recent job experiences

–  Your value added descriptions, and 

– Your technical skills. 

Let’s dive in with the first one, customizing your URL. I wrote a blog article that I’ll link to in the show notes. So if you’re not sure to do this, you can just check out that blog, but you can also just search the internet and find the help documents that LinkedIn has created. That could be a good experience for you to do it. It’s not rocket science, but it’s also not intuitive if you’ve never done it before. And that’s likely since it’s something you only do once, but you want your URL in your LinkedIn profile to read something like this, LinkedIn.com/in/yourfullname.

So mine reads Linkedin.com/in/EllenTwomey. And you want it to be like that so that it’s easier to find people. And it also shows people that you just went an extra step to really make your profile stand [00:04:00] out. 

Okay. Next up your job title. Now this is a very common mistake I see with a lot of tech newbies in this area, they have a lot of reasons why it just won’t work for them. But I know from my You are TechY recruiter mentors that no amount of excuses or fear will overcome the need for you to do this one very important thing in your LinkedIn profile. Are you listening?  Okay. That is to have a very specific title. So if you are looking for a job, here is what your title should say. Looking for opportunities in – and then name one thing. Just one thing. Now there are a few exceptions that I’ve seen done well, so let’s be specific. Junior full stack developer. That would be one of the things. UX designer. That would be one thing. Okay. Most of you that are new to tech, you just want one thing. The only time that it works when you have more than one thing is like I’ve seen scrum masters navigate this with having – looking for opportunities as a scrum master project manager or agile coach. But see, they know that those things are all very related and it kind of depends on the organizational structure, so they’re really just saying one thing, but they’re listing three in case the recruiter is searching for something specific. Okay. But in general, what I really see are people wanting to put multiple different things because they don’t want to miss out on an opportunity. And I want to tell you that that’s really selling yourself short. Okay. We’re going to talk about how organizations find you, even if they have a different opportunity than the one you list.

[00:06:00] I mean, that happens a lot more than you would think that an organization looks at your resume, they see what you’re looking for and they decide they’re gonna make you an offer for something else or give you an interview offer for something else. It really does happen. So I don’t want you to be too worried. Well, they won’t consider me for this or for that. The way to go about selecting it, if you’re deciding between a few different things, you’re going to go with the hardest thing. And here’s what I mean. It’s either the most technical, so think full stack developer as your title, as opposed to front end. Let’s say that an employer goes to your LinkedIn profile and they see you have junior full stack developer, that’s what you’re looking for. And you say looking for, you don’t say I am that if you’re not. You always want to be very truthful, but you say looking for junior full stack developer. An organization who’s looking for a front end only will absolutely make you an intro interview offer if they like your resume, they’ll have even more respect for you that you feel comfortable, that you can do all pieces of it.

Now you might say, well, Ellen, I do not want a front end. Well that’s okay, but you wouldn’t want to list out junior full stack, front end, HTML, CSS, JavaScript. You don’t need to do all that. That’s not going to make you look as professional. Okay. So that’s the hardest technically and most of you listening are probably new to tech. Some of you are more experienced. So if you’re like, well, I’m already in tech and I’m leveling up, then just put your hard – like the highest level. So if you were looking for a product manager role, but you’re also open to UX designer, UX researcher, don’t list those. Don’t say looking for opportunities in UX design, UX research, product manager, those are not closely related enough to say, looking for opportunities in product management. And you might even say looking for UX focused product management opportunities. So you can use like one adjective to describe it.

[00:08:00] If you really want to hone in, you’re saying I’m leveraging my UX skills for product management. That’s a pretty common thing to do, but go with that highest level. And if someone sees that, they’ll say, Hey, we don’t have a product management role, but we have a UX design role, senior UX designer. Would you do that? So I think sometimes we’re so afraid. We want to tell everybody all the things – I know this is for sure my tendency, but actually what we’re doing is confusing people. I mean, you really want to think about your LinkedIn profile as making it easy for recruiters. Now I might be a little overly sensitive. I have some very close recruiter friends, but it’s a painful process to do recruiting. You want it to be as simple as possible. And I know a lot of times people are like, well, the robots that are reading my resume, LinkedIn profile, you know. Eventually human eyes see it. Really, that is happening. I’m not saying that, you know, they’re not running scan programs and things like that. So you want to have the right terms on there, and we’ll talk a little bit more about right terms, but the reality is you’re making it hard. You’re making that recruiter think way too hard about where you fit into their organization. And that’s not fair to them. It’s your job to really know what your dream job is. And if you’re thinking, I don’t know that. That is coming across in your LinkedIn profile. So that’s why I created the freebie dream job. So you can go to YouAreTechY.com/dreamjob and grab that freebie. It’s really pretty simple, but it is so helpful because you’re really committing to what you want your dream job to be. And then what happens when we do that? Just watch your brain, that goes caveat, caveat, caveat. Well, I would take this or wouldn’t take that. You know what?

[00:10:00] I pretty much will guarantee you you’re not going to find every item on your dream job, but just knowing what you’re going for will provide so much clarity, not only to you, but it’s going to come through with recruiters. So. I really want you to give that a shot and make sure that you are filling out that dream job description and then aligning your title to exactly that it’s gonna just be. I think you’re going to be really happy with the results of how amazingly confident you look and feel. 

Alright, we’re on to the next one. The third one, which is the summary. I’m not going to spend too much time on this. The only thing I’m going to say is people make these way too long. All I want you to do is focus on the top two to three things that you bring to the table, but really your secret sauce. Be really honest about yourself. And you can just interview five people who know you. Don’t I always – isn’t interviewing always the answer with me? But you can, I’ve done this before. You can interview just five people who know you really well, like, you know, your husband, your best friend, a parent, a sibling, that’s only for one more, another friend, a coworker, and you can just ask them, you know, what am I really amazing at?  What do you think I’m better at than you know, 90% of the people? You go, what am I really great at? And just make a list and then compare those lists and look at what are the top two to three that come off there that are repeated. You want to keep it really true to you because that is going to be so much easier to write. And it’s also going to attract the right people to you. Like if you’re a really loud boisterous person and an organization is a very quiet and it’s a silent work environment, you might not be the right fit. That’s okay. But you want to be really honest about what it is that makes you so special and put that in your summary.  So when you show up for the interview, you just get to be more of yourself. That is so much easier, but [00:12:00] don’t overthink that summary because it’s not really as important as some of these other parts of the profile. 

Moving on to number four, this is LinkedIn only, and this is a great tip from actually a mom in our community. Allie, shout out to Allie for this, because this is a great recommendation and I’ve made this several times. Thanks, Allie. She changed industry on her profile to computer software. And then upon doing this, she immediately received a significant increase in inbound inquiries, leads to jobs. So it’s a great tip and it’s really easy to do many people skip it, but it’s very simple. So give it a try now. If you’re thinking yeah, but I’m not in the software industry. Okay. That is not a lie. That is the industry that you are seeking. And we’re going to talk about how to align your experiences with that industry. So there’s no line on your profile or resume that I would ever advocate.  It will only get you into trouble, but changing that to what you’re looking for and putting that industry aligned to what you’re looking for, that’s actually just helping recruiters. That’s not dishonest in any way, provided you’re working towards that. That’s the skill. Those are the skills you’re acquiring and you’re moving in that direction. So it’s a really simple thing to do. And you can find that too, in the LinkedIn profile searching. And it’s just changing the industry. I say that because most of the stuff on LinkedIn, they kind of hide it in the editing feature. I don’t know why. Once you get into profile editing, you can change a whole bunch of stuff, but it’s not intuitive in my opinion. Could use a little UX over there, LinkedIn. 

But let’s move on to number five, your recent job experiences. We’re not even in the experiences yet. All of those are kind of on the periphery, but you really want to get those right before you dive into recent experiences. Now, what we’re going to talk about is what goes at the top.

[00:14:00] It is totally fine to list all of your job experiences, but you do not have job duties or descriptions for the ones that you did 20 years ago, unless you’ve been home for 20 years, then you might. But once you get to the top, once you have two or three or four jobs with descriptions, the next you list out. And you don’t have to have those on there, it kind of depends on if they help you or if they don’t. For me, I have them because it kind of tells my story where I started as a developer and a designer and a teacher. It’s just helpful. But if that is not helpful to you, you don’t have to have those on there. You can just have the top two, three, four. Now, if you’re thinking, um, I’ve stayed at home with my kids for the last 12 years, they do not have the top two, three, four, we’re going to talk about that. But I used to be so literal about this resume. I would separate out my jobs and then the education section and never the two shall meet. Well, when I was getting my master’s degree from Purdue –  Boiler Up – um, I always say Purdue because I want to give them credit because they did a great job. And I was getting my master’s degree in learning design and technology. I put that at the top. But that wasn’t a job, but it doesn’t say jobs. I mean, I wouldn’t label your resume jobs and then put education. In LinkedIn, it says experience. So why did I put that if it wasn’t a job? It’s because if I want potential employers to know where they can categorize me, it was helpful for them to see, Oh, she’s working on her master’s in learning design and technology. Got it. She’s not working on her master’s in development. She’s not going to be a developer, even though she has development experience, she’s not going to be a teacher or an administrator in school. She’s going to be in learning design and technology. She’s going to be in instructional design and UX design. It helps them to understand where [00:16:00] to categorize me. And yes, that’s a master’s degree, but anything that you are doing that’s moving your career forward – so any experience, even courses you taking, especially if it’s a sequence of courses or coaching program or a bootcamp that is going to be really helpful to recruiters and likely going to be at the top of your resume for a bit, right? This LinkedIn profile is an ever evolving process. What did one of our group members say? She’s like, it’s a WIP, it’s a work in progress. I mean, it’s supposed to tell the most recent version of you. So there will be a time when you will have, I think, some courses or freelance. And I say free in double quotes – projects that you’re working on, that you can talk about how you’re developing the relevant skills that are supporting that title, looking for opportunities in X, right? You can’t be a junior developer if you don’t get some education and practice in that field, because this is very common sentiment out here. Well, how can I get hired if I don’t have any experience? And if I don’t have any experience, I can’t get hired and they, you know, they’ll spin in this vicious cycle. You gotta go get yourself some experience. Now you are not going to be able to put, I’m a current junior developer. I’m a current junior full stack developer on your experiences when you’re not, but think about this. So often we have these confidence blocks that am looking for junior full stack developer role, but I don’t have that experience on my LinkedIn. Of course you don’t. Of course, because you’re not there yet. So what can you put there? You can put education and you can put freelance projects that you are servicing clients with until you get hired in that role. You’re basically practicing the job before you do it. And that is okay.

[00:18:00] That’s a perfectly valid place to be. And so you should own that and honor that and think about your experiences as supporting that opportunity that you’re looking for. Okay. So your top two to three experiences, and it’s okay if you’re going to start off with one, and then you’re going to add two. Those are going to support the goal that you have now is you’re thinking that’s just not going to be enough. 

Let me tell you, number six and number seven. This is what’s going to make that enough. That’s going to make it good and supportive and allow you to enter the tech field or allow you to level up in your career.

Number six is value added job descriptions. Okay. I’m going to tell you right now if you’re like, well, I don’t know exactly what a value at a job description is I’m gonna tell you what a job value at a job description is not. You’re not going to be able to do this one time and be like, is this good? No, it’s not. And then if you do it two times, is it good? No, it’s not. You’re going to go over these three to four times. Now. This is critical stepping away between each time. So if you’re thinking you’re going to do your LinkedIn profile and one day don’t do that. No. That’s automatically wrong. It’s automatically wrong. You want to give yourself three to four attempts so you can have some fresh eyes on it. Oh, speaking of fresh eyes, my friends, not only are your eyes going to be on this, but after you’ve done that three to four times, what you’re going to do is ask a recruiter. And a hiring manager, somebody who hires in a field similar to yours. In a tech role they literally call themselves technical recruiters, especially if they’re in technical fields or in software development. That’s going to be true for most of the things you’re looking at.

[00:20:00] You’re just going to let a hiring manager and a recruiter look at those and give you feedback and you aren’t looking for them to give you a stamp of approval. You want to actively solicit, can you help me make these better? And I want to be really clear. Did you hear that? I didn’t say ask your best friend. Did you hear that? I didn’t ask, say, ask your mom or dad. Did you hear that? I didn’t say ask the person next to you. You want to find someone who really has the perspective that you want. And this is important. I did not say go hire a resume writer that is different than a technology resume. And I know that resume writers, they can provide a lot of valuable skills, so I’m not knocking them. But that’s not going to help you with your value added job descriptions because what a hiring manager can say is, you know, these are pretty good, but if I was hiring you, I’d really be looking for this skill and then you’re going to melt down. No, you’re not going to melt down. We’re going to talk about how we figure that out. But that’s the type of information we’re looking for. I really want you to go through this very, very hard process of getting the feedback and not thinking that you’re going to throw a LinkedIn profile together in one day. Okay. The other thing I want to tell you, about value added job descriptions, any experience that you have can be described as value added, it really will depend on the perspective you give to it. So what I want you to do is, it’s fine to just write down what you do in a course. You should be not just saying I learned this. I learned that. You should be talking about what you’re creating. And if you’re taking a tech course and you’re not creating deliverables, it really isn’t serving you in tech. You don’t have to have prior experience. You do have to demonstrate your work, but as you are going over these descriptions after you’ve done it, the two or three or four times, then I want you to look at it and ask yourself this question for each description. And you’re going to have three to five for each experience.

[00:22:00] Is this the absolute most value added way to describe this experience? That’s what you’re looking for. What is the most value added way that you can describe it? And you can describe anything as a value add. Okay. But the more direct, if you say, like, I learned this, I learned that that’s just showing that you’re not putting the time in. And so even if you have prior jobs, as a Starbucks barista. I love that one. If you think that that’s just like a dramatic statement. No, actually there’s a community member, a coach who went from Starbucks barista to UX designer. Yes, it’s true. And so you can make anything sound amazing. And by the way, I think Starbucks baristas are amazing. But what I’m saying is you can say, I serve coffee. Or you can say it in a completely value added way about how you’re servicing customers and understanding their needs and taking care of them. There are really different ways to describe what you’ve done. So make sure that you go over it and over it again, asking yourself that question, is this the absolute most value added way to describe this job description? 

Okay. We’re almost done here. We are on number seven, which is tech skills. And I feel like I thought this whole thing would be about tech. It is, but it’s really, you’ve got to make sure you have all these bases covered. Some of these are general, but this is going to make you look like the professional you want to look like. So if you’re wondering, okay, but how do I know specifically what tech goes on there? Let me tell you a couple things about tech. It’s great to list your technical skills in software in its own area. That’s totally great to do. Like in LinkedIn, they have a skills and endorsements section. Don’t worry about it if you don’t have any endorsements, you can, again, you’re going to be building those over time. It’s okay. If you just add them, don’t stress over that. But yeah, I highly recommend that you also weave [00:24:00] those technical skills and software into your job descriptions, and you’re going to weave those in not shoving every single one of them into there, just the top two to three skills and the top two to three software. Usually it’s two software. You’re just going to weave those into your job descriptions. And so you’re going to be reiterating the fact that you need that and that’s going to help you with kind of those robo scanners and the automated processes that will help you. It’s also going to add value to that description. If you’re referencing github and your developer, and you’re in a description and you’re not just talking about,  I have a github. No, you’re reading it into a more value added description. That’s very important. Okay. But if you’re thinking, okay, but what are the most important tech skills for a specific tech position? What if I’m a UX designer? What if I’m a developer? What if I’m a scrum master? Ellen, tell me what goes on there. I’m actually going to tell you a strategy that’s going to be helpful for throughout your career. And regardless of if things change, which in technology they always do. So I’m going to give you a strategy for this, but I will say I want to reiterate two to three skills. And then to software, because if you’re like, no, no, no, no, no. I need to list every single software. So like in UX design, we have wire framing software. I need to list every single wire framing software. Well, that’s just a waste of time learning every single one. If you knew two of them and a company won’t hire you because you don’t know a third one that they have, I would argue that’s not the company for you. If you’ve proven that you can use two different wireframing softwares, you’re going to be able to learn a third. That’s not the point. The point isn’t, do I know this software that’s software, the point is can I create a great user experience. Can I create a wireframe? hat’s going to be effectively used by my users, right?

[00:26:00] That’s the important part. So when I say skill, I mean, wireframe. And when I say creating wire frames, and when I say software, I mean Axure or Figma or Adobe XD, one of those. So those are the ways that you had kind of have to think about it. And when you talk about tech skills, you want both, you want a combination of them. One more thing on this one, because I know when I got hired as a UX freelancer for one of my clients, I had Ruby on Rails on my profile. So I had done some significant projects using Ruby on Rails, but I, again, I go back to that experiences. I clearly was not looking for a developer role, but I still had that on there. Now, when they asked me about it in our interview, I said, yeah, it’s definitely not a current skill. That’s not really the skill I’m looking to apply. I’m a UX designer, but they still value that prior skill. That was the technology they were using. And they wanted to have people on hand who could code should it be necessary. It never became necessary, but that was a skill that I had on my resume. That was truthful and honest, but wasn’t a current one that I use. So I want to make sure that you don’t have to just take them off because you’re not up to date on them. What you want to do is not list them in your top two to three experiences and then just be honest about, you’re not going to be able to do every technology. It’s okay that you focused on a couple of different things that you’ve committed to a path. Just be open and honest about it, but don’t think that because you haven’t done something in 10 years, people don’t care. They actually care very much if you could do something 10 years ago, there’s a lot of reason for them to believe that you’ll be able to do it again. Does that make sense? Or something equivalently hard. Okay. Let’s, let’s identify how to find those technology skills. It’s a pretty in depth process, but there’s only five steps. Step number one, you’re going to use that job title that you decided upon. So when you say looking for opportunities, underlying whatever you filled in that underlined with that, that’s what you’re going to research. And you’re going to just, you can use LinkedIn as a job search or [00:28:00] Indeed, or the mom project, any of those. And you’re going to find five to seven job postings, and then you’re going to look across those five to seven job postings and identify the top five to seven skills and software. So it’s two different looks that are repeated across those. So if you see them, you’ve printed out six. They’re on three of them, list that skill. Those are going to be the most relevant technical skills and technologies that you need on your profile. Now, if you do those and you’re like, thanks so much, I have none of those. Not time to wig out. You just need step number five, which is to align your skills and experiences to those. If you’re wondering, like how can I get hired? That’s what you’re going to do, but you need to give yourself time to do this. This is why I encourage you to do your LinkedIn profiles so early, whenever you have it ready to go. Whenever you put those looking for opportunities, people want to go along that journey with you. They want to see that you’re making progress. It’s okay that you aren’t there yet. One day you will be there. And if you can really look at those skills and technologies that you need and say, okay, I don’t have all of those. Don’t put them on your LinkedIn profile. I want you to do that, but you’re going to find the right courses, certificate coaching program, boot camp for you, freelance clients. You’re giving someone free work. You can say, okay, I know you need these three things done. I need to make sure I do this one thing. Can I add that one thing and I’ll do it all for free? That’s a great way to really build those skills. And that’s how you can know that your resume is going to really be a tech resume that stands out. You’re looking at the current skills. You’re looking at the job you want. And you’re looking at the skills that that job requires, as stated by the market, as stated by the jobs that you’re interested in. And by the way, when you pull those five to seven out, don’t worry about location [00:30:00] ever, because you’re just looking at what you are interested in. Those are probably not even jobs you’re going to apply for. This is a great process to go through when you’re just starting out. You’re not even really sure how you’re going to get there, but it’s just a dream. I just heard that from a student today, she was like, UX design was just a dream and now I’m getting so close. It’s really a beautiful process. So don’t worry that you’re not there yet. That it isn’t quite right. So if you look at those five to seven skills, don’t think, I don’t have any of these, just think how can I gain one? Okay. Let’s put that at the top of the LinkedIn profile. How can I gain a second one? And that’s the great thing is that if you stay focused, those skills really stack on top of each other. So please, please, please give yourself time to do it’s not a one day activity and don’t worry if you’re updating your profiles, you go, that means you’re doing it right. People, they love to see that you’re a learner and they love to go on that journey with you. So don’t worry about reaching out to that recruiter ahead of time. You can network with them on LinkedIn. You can join our Facebook group. facebook.com/group/youaretechy. You can network with them and they can see them grow and develop into the professional they just might want to hire that. 

Friends is how you create a tech resume that stands out. I’ll see you next time. Thanks so much for being here.

Ellen Twomey: Hey, if you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you have to sign up for the You Are Techy e-mail list. Imagine being in the tech job of your dreams. Join me to get the strategies, training, and never ending support to get tired. Sign up at youaretechy.com. That’s Y-O-U-A-R-E-T-E-C-H-Y dot [00:20:00] com. I’ll see you next time!