Successful-Resumes

Why Do I Have to Sell Myself in My Resume?

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Hiring managers get dozens, if not hundreds of resumes from possible candidates. Strong resumes that grab the reader’s attention quickly and encourage them to read further improve a solid candidate being considered for the roles they want. Most of us don’t like to brag or ‘sell’ ourselves, but today it’s critical to insure you stand out from the crowd. If your resume doesn’t stand out, you may never get the opportunity to be considered further.

So, how do you make your resume stand out?

Successful Resumes

Understanding the fundamentals of how people read and review resumes will give you a head start in creating a strong resume.

Hiring managers and recruiters frequently review dozens of resumes. Because resumes aren’t the most interesting reading, most people want to review them as efficiently as they can to find the best candidate. As a result, if your resume is strong starting in the first half page of your resume, you’ll encourage the reader to read on.

To make your resume compelling right from the start you want to make your resume easy to read, with enough white space on the resume so the reader doesn’t feel overwhelmed as they begin to consider you as a candidate.

When you include a professional summary near the beginning, incorporating information that provides your business strengths, as well as your personal strengths you convey what you’ll be like on the job and as a member of the team. Are you a strategic thinker, a good problem solver, creative? Make sure you include some positive statements about your personal strengths.

In the body of your resume highlight your accomplishments and contributions. Many people feel they did ‘what was expected’ on the job, and don’t realize they made contributions such as a special project they took the lead on or the time they solved a problem implementing a process improvement or practice that improved outcomes. Think hard about even the smallest contributions you’ve made.

Historically resumes included statements that frequently started with…

Successful Resume Writing

Responsible for…
Managed…
Handled…

Use more compelling action verbs that catch attention. Start statements with an action verb since it’s easier for the hiring manager to identify what your actual contribution was.

Let’s consider a few accomplishments and contributions and compelling action verbs to highlight them.

Ex: You were the manager of a team. Try using verbs like cultivated, fostered, inspired, mentored, motivated, or aligned to highlight traits that differentiated you as a manager.

Ex: You worked in customer service. Try verbs such as advised, resolved, improved, or informed.

Ex: You met your goals, either revenue or a specific metric. Try adding verbs like surpassed, demonstrated, accomplished, or attained to differentiate your accomplishment.

Ex: You wrote documents or processes. You might want to use verbs like authored, composed, promoted, created, or reviewed.

Ex: You led a project team. Add verbs such as headed, organized, executed, or oversaw to catch the hiring manager’s attention more quickly.

As you’re considering what to include, focus on times when you increased revenue or saved the company time or money. Bottom line, accomplishments focused on savings or increased revenue are more significant.

Your resume and career history will make a bigger impact if you use dynamic action verbs to highlight your contributions and accomplishments. Verbs that are overused and anemic will diminish what you’ve done and may not get you to the next step. Using strong compelling words in your resume can compel the hiring manager to invite you to interview.

A strong resume is the beginning of a successful job search.

For more information about opportunities or next steps, check out our employment opportunities or contact us!

Traveling Nursing

Travel Nursing – A Flexibility Win-Win

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Everyone would love more flexibility and better balance of work, family, hobbies and interests. But flexibility in nursing can seem a remote dream. Not true.

Travel Nursing May Be a Great Solution!

medical-professionalIf you’ve ever considered becoming a travel nurse, there’s lots of options today from local travel that keeps you in the communities you know, to faraway international travel roles that provide interesting new adventures. Travel Nursing can be an exciting career with lifelong opportunities and the demand is high. So, what does it take to make this your career?

If you’re interested in becoming a Travel Nurse, you need to be a licensed Registered Nurse, preferably with a bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 1-2 years’ current hospital or clinical experience. While the mandatory minimum is one year, many facilities prefer two years or more. Your experience should include day-to-day experience in a hospital setting and ample time spent in the role with a solid understanding of systems and protocol, and you’ll want experience handling unexpected and possibly challenging conditions.

Remember, every time you take a travel assignment, you’re going in with minimal history of the current situation or the patient population, so the ability to adapt quickly will be critical.

Strong problem-solving skills and learning on the fly will enable you to ramp up and become productive quickly. Most organizations include training, perhaps 1-2 days of training or even less, so having previous experience and being able to learn quickly are important strengths to have. You possess the ability to practice with little direction and assess situations quickly to provide the best possible healthcare timely and efficiently.

Labor and Delivery

Experience working in fast paced environments is a solid asset for travel nurses. Travel nursing is a great choice for nurses that love to challenge themselves and experience a variety of environments, and those who specialize in specific units, but want more flexibility.

The best specialties for Travel Nursing are: ER, ICU, Labor and Delivery, OR, ICU, Elder Care, NICU, PICU, Telemetry and Home Care.

While travel nursing offers flexibility, it also is a great choice for lifelong careers. Experiencing a move or life change? Not ready to retire? Try travel nursing. If you’re interested in nursing and flexibility, there will be opportunities.

Travel nursing is a career choice that provides multiple opportunities, the ability to travel to new communities or cities, the prospect of working at premiere hospitals and clinics and enjoy the flexibility you want.

For more information about opportunities or next steps, check out our employment opportunities or contact us!

interview-questions-for-employers

20 Interview Questions You Need to Ask an Employer

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You’ve got your first interview coming up with the manager and you’ve prepared how to answer all the questions including why you’re looking for a new role. But have you thought about what questions you should ask?

This is the first time you should be asking specific questions to find out more details about the company, the culture, your future manager, peers you’ll be working with, and future growth opportunities.

It’s a good idea to start with general questions and then move on to more specific questions.

About the Company

  1. Ask about the company’s short and long-term goals. What are major initiatives this year and what are the long-term plans?
  2. Inquire out about the culture. While most companies declare they have a positive work environment, what does that really mean? Ask the interviewer what their experience has been and what they value most at the company. Ask what they’d like the company to improve? Is it corporate sponsored events, community giving, or perhaps more frequent internal or executive communication. It doesn’t matter what the answer is, but it can provide valuable information for you.

Position Specifics

This can be tricky because candidates often ask general questions like, what are the job expectations, or how do you define success? And, the answers often don’t provide useful information. Be specific.

  1. How would your time be allocated on a ‘typical’ day?
  2. What are the challenges that you’re going to face? In the first 90 days? And the first year?
  3. What’s the structure of the team and how long have people on the team been at the company and in their roles?
  4. What obstacles may arise? And where will the resources be to overcome them?
  5. What metrics do they use to determine success in the role?
  6. How frequently will your manager meet with you? Daily, weekly, or bi-weekly?
  7. What’s your manager’s management style? Are they a hands-off manager or a micromanager?
  8. Request a meeting with your peers on the team. It’s a great opportunity to get a good feel for what you’re getting into. What were the department’s biggest challenges last year and how did they solve them?

Salary and Compensation

interview-questions-for-employersSalary and compensation conversations should be kept general in the beginning of your meetings. Likely the recruiter will ask your salary, or salary range, and you can provide them current salary, desired compensation, or a range. However, if you provide a range, keep the range within $5-$7K, because whatever range you state, the employer hears the lowest number, while you’re thinking the highest end of the range. This disparity can result in an offer that disappoints.

In meetings with the actual hiring manager, salary and compensation questions you initiate should be kept to a minimum.

  1. You may want to ask for confirmation your salary is in the range of what the company has allocated for the job.
  2. You can ask for an overview of the company benefit plans. Some companies won’t provide specifics until the end, but many will provide you a summary of their overall benefits.
  3. Ask when detailed benefit information will be available.
  4. Ask about perks the company regularly provides, like matching contributions to charities, educational reimbursement, free beverages, casual work environment, work from home days, etc.

Training and Future Opportunities

  1. Inquire about any early training.
  2. Ask if there’s a senior resource available for questions or if they have a formal mentoring program? It’s always a benefit to have a mentor, so if it’s not offered, find one within the company as soon as possible. It can be an employee in another department, but your mentor should have more tenure and seniority to be the most useful.
  3. What are the future training opportunities, from web training to conferences and onsite training?
  4. Ask about growth opportunities? What’s been typical in the department?
  5. What was the manager’s trajectory in the company and have they promoted any team members?
  6. Ask about opportunities to transition to other departments and the flexibility to do so if it’s good for your long-term career growth at the company and an opportunity presents itself. What are the limitations?

interview-questions-for-employersIt’s important to have some knowledge of the individual you’re meeting, as well as the organization before you ask any or all questions. If you’re interviewing at a start-up, growth opportunities, training and mentoring may not be clearly outlined. However, if it’s a small start-up you’re interested in, it’s important to understand your manager’s philosophy to promoting people, and in the end, you’ll likely need to be more open to taking a risk. Well established companies often have formal development and/or training programs, so you’re likely to get more concrete information.

It doesn’t matter how much you want the job, it is critical you get as much information and your questions answered, so you can make an informed decision if you get an offer. There’s nothing worse than accepting an offer and learning later, you should have asked more questions and now you’re committed to a job you don’t like.

In the end, stay positive throughout your conversations with the company. There will be times when it’s appropriate to ask certain specific questions, and other times when you’ll have to keep questions more general. And you need to be sensitive to the interviewer’s interest in answering questions. Don’t ask too many questions at once. There’s nothing worse than a candidate who drills the interviewer with multiple questions when the interviewer isn’t convinced they’re a strong candidate. It confirms to the interviewer that the candidate has little awareness of how the interview is going or doesn’t know that timing of questions is critical.

Click here for more information on OCC Clinicians current opportunities.

smart-at-work

Smart People – The Best and Worst of Being Smart at Work

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I wanted to write about what it meant to be a smart person in the workplace, and realized it’s been widely written about already. It’s generally accepted that being smart is fundamental to success and there are numerous articles and blogs that support that belief. So, rather than restate what others have said, often better than I could, I wanted to highlight articles that were especially interesting.

What defines a smart person?

An article in HighIQ talks about the benefits of being smart, and how intelligent you need to be to be considered ‘smart’. In this article the author defines the ‘highly gifted’ individual with an IQ of 140 and above, while just being ‘smart’ has an IQ at 130 and above. Are you curious what your IQ is? It doesn’t really matter what your actual IQ tested at, or tests at, because it can change. Most people inherently know how smart they are, especially once they’ve been exposed to both a formal education and the workplace. Whether you’re a CEO or you’ve only worked one year, you know if you’re smart. Doing well in academics isn’t always the only indicator of an intelligent mind. In an article in the Elite Daily, several of the most successful businesspeople in today’s world were challenged in school, with the most recognized name being Bill Gates. Consequently, while intelligent individuals frequently get good grades in school, some don’t and still have profound success once they’re in the workforce.

And in the Forbes article, Science Says These Five Things Prove You’re Smart, being smart is defined by anxiety, early reading, early music lessons, left handedness and a solid sense of humor. This appears to be an unscientific way to conclude intelligence, but I felt it appropriate to include.

What are the quirks of being a smartie?

According to an article by John Stanley Hunter, Business Insider , published in the Independent on Friday 5, August 2016, smart people swear more, have a larger profanity vocabulary that they can spout easily, and don’t get much sleep. They can also be very funny. After reading that article, I realized I’ve met a lot of smart people, who were quick with their humor and sometimes profanity, along with interesting ideas and stimulating discussions.

And in an article in the Thought Catalog by Kovie Biakolo, smart individuals often are harder on themselves, less happy, misunderstood, frustrated, sometimes not particularly successful and frustrated because a superior has a lower intellect, which dramatically articulates the frustrations that can occur when someone has a high intellect. But, they don’t have to limit you.

What are the downsides of being smart at work?

Whether you’re smart or not, everyone makes mistakes and has flaws. But smart people make some unusually stupid mistakes. Smart people often respond too fast to simple questions, getting the answer wrong because they rely on knowing they’re smart, and don’t think about what the question is really asking. Smart people sometimes don’t ask questions when they should. Likely because they assume they already know the answers from past experience or knowledge they’ve gained.

Think you’re smart? You should read this article in Ladders…and likely you’ll realize you still have a lot to learn.

In an article in the Houston Chronicle, “The word “smart” is often associated with a high intelligence quotient or IQ. And, Webster’s Dictionary defines “smart” as mentally alert, knowledgeable, witty and clever. There is one major difference between a smart employee and one who simply has a high intelligence quotient. An employee with a high IQ is able to comprehend, analyze, process and reproduce information. While a smart employee has these skills too, he also possesses a worldly wisdom and common sense that no textbook or training can teach, including wisdom that is derived from his life experience.”

To take that information further, being a genius doesn’t necessarily provide more benefits in work output, but being smart, and combining it with experience and common sense will likely get one farther, faster.

What are the benefits of being smart at work and at home?

In a recent Reader’s Digest article, wise people execute a lot of smart habits and actions that should improve their knowledge, quality of life and social skills. These positive actions and habits are wise for anyone to develop at all stages of life.

In the end, being smart doesn’t get you happiness, guarantee productivity, money, or love, but it does give you the ability to learn what you don’t know, what you’re doing wrong, and how you can improve, if used well. The rest is up to common sense, luck and fate.

After my research, I learned it’s generally an advantage in the workplace to be smart. But like many advantages it must be appreciated, and individuals need to be aware of the challenges they still face and focus their energy on strengthening the positive and coping with the negative. Consider intelligence and smartness another tool in your toolbox you can use to make yourself better, and you’ve got a valuable tool. Waste it, by too much comparison and introspection, and it becomes a burden.

 

healthcare-resume-advice

How Do You…A Healthcare Professional, Handle Gaps In Your Resume?

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You took time out from your work, now you’re wondering…how do I explain it. Will it hurt my ability to get another job, much less a job I want?

Let’s start with the first question:

How do you explain a gap in your resume?

Foremost, transparency from the start is highly recommended. Be honest. But, don’t pour out your whole story and explanation. That information should only be passed along to close friends and family. If you aren’t prepared and don’t have your elevator story set, you could end up having your absence hurt your chances of getting that job.

Start by preparing, planning what you’ll say, what your story will be and begin with an honest, concise explanation of what happened.

Examples:

  1. Laid off: You were laid off. If others were laid off at the same employer, include it. If no one else was laid off, you need a plausible explanation why it happened to you. It may be the number of patients were declining, or they needed to reduce everyone’s hours, or they lost funding. But, what if you had difficulty learning something specific? Explain why, and how you’ve overcome the challenge. Don’t expect to avoid it. You’ll need to tackle it head on. If it was due to differences with management, state that, but concisely, and then add information such as the circumstances, the result, and what you’ve learned. Explain how it’s made you a better professional. And be prepared with this information before you start applying for any jobs.
  2. Family illness: Whether it was you, a family member or parent, explain the reason concisely and add what you learned throughout that will benefit you in the future. You don’t need to reveal who was ill, what the illness was, for how long, or what support you provided, and if it was you, you don’t need to tell a future employer. I hate to admit it, but there will always be lingering concerns that you could be at risk for future health issues if you reveal too much.
  3. Raising children: If you took time off to raise a family, everyone will celebrate you, although they may not say it. Your next employer will appreciate your dedication to your family. But you do need to explain it quickly, and explain what you’ve learned while you were not working that would benefit them directly. This could include volunteering at a professional organization (even if you just started recently), any additional learning or training you received, or a skill you learned while at home. A valuable skill may be as simple as ‘I learned how to handle conflict with others, because of an experience I had and what I learned from it.’ If it’s a skill an employer will value, it’s likely a skill that will provide reception of both your time off and your new skill. Lastly, confirm that you’re ready to return to work and have all the reasons you took time off resolved. Be swift and definite with this statement. Then move on. Most employers will too, and they’ll appreciate your family values.
  4. Business venture: You had an opportunity to go after a dream, but it didn’t work out. Explain it briefly, and absolutely guarantee employers you won’t be returning to it, you’re committed to this career now, or if it’s still ongoing, that your participation there is minimal.
  5. Return to school: This is likely the easiest to explain because you just need to say it, and explain what you learned that will benefit your employer in the future. Again, be succinct.

Where do you begin to tell people you’ve had a gap?

Right from the start…on your resume is best. Use a chronological resume and put it on there. We can’t say it enough, transparency, transparency, transparency. You can state it like this on your resume:

Family Leave (2015 to 1/2017)
Took time off support a family member. Or, if it was you, state ‘Personal Reasons’ as your title, then don’t give a reason here, but do take classes or do some volunteering before you start applying for a job.)

  • Continuing education classes you took.
  • Research you did during this period.
  • Volunteering you did during this period.

Whatever the reason there’s a gap, deal with it quickly, be honest and transparent. Your values and ethics are always being considered – and a gap in employment often reveals your character, values and ethics. The life choices we make reveal a person’s substance.

For more information about opportunities or next steps, check out our employment opportunities or contact us!