Is Your Resume as Great as it Should Be? Key Tips you Need to Know!

Today, we’re joined by Dawn Rasmussen, a certified resume writer and president of Pathfinder Writing and Career Services. She’s been writing resumes for nearly 14 years, and today, she will provide you with the key tips you need to know when it comes to your resume writing so that you can put your best foot forward. 

Lauren Francis: Good afternoon. Hello, Dawn. 

Dawn Rasmussen: Hey, Lauren, how are you doing? 

Lauren Francis: It seems like forever since we met in person.

Dawn Rasmussen: I know we were just talking about that. I’m excited to chat today. 

Lauren Francis: We recommend that people use a service like yours. It makes a big difference in terms of how people feel about being able to share their areas of expertise and clearly communicate. It makes a difference for people in terms of how their resumes are presented and how they show up in an interview setting. They’re more organized in terms of how they deliver that message.

So, what changes have you seen? Talk to us a little bit about the evolution, where you see things now, and what people need to be thinking about as they prepare to go out on the job market.

Dawn Rasmussen: I think a seismic shift probably happened during the Great Recession. People were on the job, they’ve been with employers, and, a lot of times, we get to know everybody, we become friends, it feels like family. Yet, at the end of the day, when the recession happened, employers were cutting staff, and people were absolutely flabbergasted. “I feel like I was part of the family. How could you do this to me? I came in early, stayed late, and gave my firstborn child. We’re all friends,” and they were just shocked.

I think it was a wake-up call because a lot of people were pretty much just cruising along and not really thinking about the greater picture of what their careers looked like. So, the shift happened, and you can’t just depend on your employer to take care of you. You are there as a result of a business agreement. In as much as that, you’re still providing value to the employer that keeps you on, and then you stay there as long as you feel like you’re being compensated for that value. 

The resume has become an important tool to really help tell your story about the value you bring to the table. Essentially, it’s become your marketing document.

I tell all my clients, “You need to keep track of all of your accomplishments, your plan of work, your staff performance reviews, any project recaps, anything that would help you tell the story and outline what you’ve done so that you have a better perspective of how you helped move the needle, how you made a difference.”

Another big shift is that people used to copy job postings’ job descriptions into their resumes. And it’s just not going to hack it these days. That does not tell the prospective employer anything about that person and what they’ve been able to do.

It’s all about value. We really have to think about how we are going to show how we made a difference, how we moved the needle, and how we benefit that company because prospective employers are looking at that as a way to gauge what this person might be able to do for them. So, there’s been a really big shift in how we write resumes and present ourselves.

It is an excellent exercise for everyone to regularly, not just once in a blue moon or when you have to, but regularly update your resume, because if you’re more present with your accomplishments, you feel much more secure about yourself and confident in your value.

And that really can translate to either promotions or raises and that kind of thing, or at least make you feel empowered so that if you don’t like what you’re seeing, where you are now, then it’s time to start looking for something else. 

Lauren Francis: Absolutely. How does LinkedIn fit into your resume, and how do they work together?

Dawn Rasmussen: LinkedIn is a necessity nowadays because you have to have a digital footprint. I understand a lot of people don’t want to have any kind of social media out there—my husband is one of them—but at the same time, employers, it’s like they will get your resume and then go out and look for your LinkedIn to see what else they can learn about you. 

It does give you that online visibility, but it’s also an incredible opportunity to speak directly to your audience and make it much more personal because it is social media, right? So what you’re doing is creating an opportunity to talk directly to your target audience while you’re also conveying culture fit and chemistry.

A lot of job seekers don’t even realize there’s a whole separate version of LinkedIn called LinkedIn Recruiter. I’m sure you have a version of it, Lauren, but that’s like a whole other operating system that uses LinkedIn to slice and dice candidates while you’re trying to source for a job opening.

People need to know about that. So, the keyword stuff comes into play there, too. 

Lauren Francis: Oh yeah, for sure. The keyword piece can help candidates use those words to help the algorithm so that they are seen. 

Dawn Rasmussen: It is mission-critical. I coach people that you need to have essentially at the top of their resume a job title headline pointing their arrows externally towards where they want to go and what types of jobs, but then it also serves to frame up what you’re about to discuss in the resume.

You’ll organically attract the right keywords in that same fashion. You have to have a focus point because if you can’t tell an employer what you’re all about, they won’t take the time to figure it out either. 

Lauren Francis: Right, in terms of that title piece, there are many titles that aren’t titles; they are more statements. 

Dawn Rasmussen: I have a magic formula that I like to tell people about. The title Sales Professional doesn’t tell where they are in their career or anything like that. You should be clear on where you are in your career. Are you an assistant, a specialist, a coordinator, or a manager? Director, senior director, VP, EV, PR, C-Suite? So you need to figure out the pay part. That’s very critical for you to advance your career in terms of career ascendancy and also the earnings potential. 

But you also need to be clear on your function. Are you in sales? Are you in marketing and operations? Are you in finance? What’s your bailiwick? What’s your strength? You want to marry function plus career level, and that gives you a target from which to start. 

As we all know, companies sometimes struggle to create descriptive job descriptions. That’s why you need to clarify it yourself and in your resume. You can tweak what you’ve put in your resume to match whatever the language of the job opening is. So it’s clear, but you don’t want to change your job title headline at the top of the resume so much that the rest of your content does not agree with it.

Lauren Francis: Are there templates and things that people can use to try to enhance their own LinkedIn profile on their own.

Dawn Rasmussen: There are two parts to it with the LinkedIn profile. Number one, you have to have a robust profile. Fill in all the fields and be very thorough and diligent by completing your profile as fully as possible. Make sure you add sections because there’s a baseline LinkedIn profile, but you can also add sections. You can add more links to have a profile that is as robust as possible. 

That’s part one, but you can’t just build it and hope they’ll come. You really have to think of LinkedIn as your garden that needs to be tended all the time. You can’t just have the lights on but nobody’s home. You have to engage with people. You have to post things. You can choose to do a short form post, which looks like, “Hey, I was attending this conference, blah, blah, blah.” Or you could create a blog post. format, which is a long-form post, which is a great way to demonstrate your SME subject matter expertise in a particular area and get those keywords in there, too. 

You can share links, do polls, and comment on other people’s posts. You can join groups and facilitate conversations to ask LinkedIn. You have to think of LinkedIn as your career’s grand central station. It gives you a lot more flexibility to add more content than your resume, and it’s obviously more dynamic because you can click on links, and it could be a video of you talking or something like that versus just the static resume content.

It hasn’t replaced resumes yet, but it is in tandem and connected to resumes. It’s to add to that conversation and have a little bit more social element to it so that the people get a better sense of who you are 

Lauren Francis: What advice do you have for people with a lot of personality statements on their LinkedIn? There’s the professional profile, and what happens is that the personality and the personal interests feed into it. Some people are extremely expressive that way. How do you help people understand how to stay focused on the professional side and also to be able to show themselves? I just think there’s a fine line. 

Dawn Rasmussen: Yeah. I think that you’re right. Defining that line is a little hard because you want to show your personality. Still, LinkedIn is generally a different animal than any other platform because it is like an employment channel. It’s career connections and professional connections in an employment channel, so you got to know your target audience. 

Occasionally I’ll insert something personal so that people get to see a little bit more of the other side of me. That’s more, “Oh, I went on this trip!” Or “I went to this conference.”  I’ve written blog posts on LinkedIn. I was a bullied kid, and I wrote a post saying, believe in yourself; anything is possible. Going from a kid who was bullied in school to being recognized as the alumni of the year. You never know where your career is going to take you. It was personal but also professional because I tied it back to my work.

Again, knowing your audience is critical. Remember, whatever you put out there can help you or bite you in the behind, too. Just because you delete it doesn’t mean it doesn’t get archived on the Internet, so just be aware. 

Lauren Francis: What changes are on the horizon? AI is here. There was a time, maybe before the pandemic, when there was a lot of talk about not using resumes anymore and having a video or different ways to showcase your backgrounds and work organizations using a different method. Is there anything that you can share about the current and future changes that are happening? 

Dawn Rasmussen: I just got back from the National Resume Writers Association conference last month. I have a connection from my speaking circuit, who’s like the tech guru, so I pulled him in. He was a featured speaker talking about AI and resumes.

Basically, his take is that AI for resume writers is not going to take our jobs away. What will happen is that the people who know how to use AI will. There’s still a pretty hard divide of people who want to do one-on-ones with our clients, resume writers in particular. We as human beings have a lot more empathy and the ability to send somebody out and get a better sense of who they are and what they bring to the table and ask questions. Whereas AI takes everything at face value and it’s more data analytical perspective. It’s interesting. 

That’s not to say the AI won’t improve. Obviously, it’s gaining more and more information every single day. So, there could be a day when resume writers are no longer available, but the problem is that it’s also always controlled by who puts in the information. Job seekers may not know the right prompts or understand how to instruct the AI.

If a college student is just trying to put together a resume, AI might be the way to go because they don’t have that much experience, but there’s a lot more nuance as people go on in their careers.

As I found, there are a lot of challenges out there for people who have been out of the workforce and are coming back. Maybe they got fired, so I can X-ray their previous career and pull out the threads that we can use to weave into their next career direction.

I don’t believe AI is yet able to do that skill, to understand what questions to ask and what kinds of relevant skill sets and accomplishments fit in that new direction. I don’t see AI replacing that anytime soon. It’s not smart enough, but it could happen in the future. I’m not ruling it out for sure. 

Lauren Francis: At the end of the day the coaching and partnership ally piece of what you do is probably, in many ways, the most important part of this process. It’s human interaction and helping people bring forward their skills and what they bring, but being able to articulate that can be hard for a lot of people. So again, there is the human peace and that coaching piece.

Many times when I refer candidates to you, it’s that interaction that sparks the next step for them, which is hugely valuable. They do get that with us, too. We spend a lot of time with our candidates and helping them with their resumes or to better articulate, let’s say, a transition that was a little bit rough and tumble or being able to express the positive things about why they left a certain role. Those things are so critical, but that’s the beginning of their journey. 

Dawn Rasmussen: Absolutely. There’s some discretion that has to happen if I’m going to help someone switch gears and go into a different field. You have to tell the truth on your resume; here is my title and that kind of thing. But the other part they can’t talk about is that maybe their boss was a nightmare or toxic, and you can’t put that in a resume. But who’s to say I might try to do that as a way to explain things or something like that? So, being nuanced, there are some things that you can say. “I did all this stuff before the company reorganized.” There’s an inference there, so the reader knows it wasn’t the employee’s fault that they got let go. Or, “There was a reduction of force.” You’re saying it without saying it, but you can’t say there was a nightmare CEO who decided to clean house or whatever because they were so egomaniacal. There are so many bad bosses out there.

Lauren Francis: There are certainly ways to express things in a way that protects the organization that you worked for. Absolutely. And the relationships that you have. That discretion is so important. 

Dawn Rasmussen: A lot of people have NDAs, and they can’t disclose certain things, but when we’re in the resume mode, we want to try to quantify results. I find workarounds for that. 

Lauren Francis: What do you say to people whose title is blocking them? Because so many times, when hiring managers look at a resume, they look at the length of time and career progression. They’re looking at titles of roles, responsibilities, and the industries they’ve worked in. Still, it’s a 10 to 15-second glance, and sometimes the title hinders their next move. What is your advice there? 

Dawn Rasmussen: Well, going back to what I said earlier, you have to be honest. I always tell candidates that if their title is holding them back, that’s horrible for the person because that really pulls the reins back on their actual job progression. The solution is to give the actual job title the person has and then, in parentheses, say, “Equivalent to…” And then whatever the comparable job title is and that should be more directly related to the job title headline at the top of the resume.

The idea is that companies sometimes are just terrible about naming job titles, and they’re not accurate. Or maybe the person’s scope of work far exceeds the original work they started out doing, so their work now eclipses that, but their job title hasn’t kept up with it.

By creating the actual job title, parenthesis equivalent to, and then whatever that job title desired, un-parenthesis, you’re saying the right thing, but you’re also letting the reader know there’s an equivalency. Still, you have to be able to back up that assertion in the content underneath there. What kinds of wins are you talking about? You need to have wins that represent that higher level or that equivalency. It helps the reader better understand that you’re not just making something up.

Lauren Francis: Oh, for sure. How do you feel about the reasons for transitions on the resume? And if they’re in a contract or not.

Dawn Rasmussen: Okay, so let’s talk about contracts.

If it’s a temporal, internship, or limited-term contract, I would put the actual job title in parenthesis and the limited-term contract in parenthesis. This way, it’s clear that this person isn’t just a pop-in and pop-out job hopper. A lot of people get recruited away or referred over to something.

I’d like to highlight that. I usually advise not to include or explain why you left a job unless it’s something that you think might hurt your chances if you’ve been there for a while.

Lauren Francis: I think that’s tough for people, but sometimes there’s too much information about the transitions, and other times there’s not enough. It’s hard to strike that balance. But you don’t see it that much on resumes unless it was a layoff, a reduction in force, or the org or a company was closed or acquired.

Dawn Rasmussen: On the flip side, I do like to mention in the resume that someone was retained during an acquisition based on historical knowledge and expertise or something similar and is progressively promoted within the company.

We want to highlight those things that show they’ve been valued assets. One thing that I see—I want to just throw this out—that’s a big no—is that people, if they’ve held multiple jobs at the same company, oftentimes lump the entirety of their tenure at the company under the big job, and it’s not accurate.

You have to list every single job you’ve held, and the dates worked because you have not held that big job the entire time you’ve been there. Actually, it’s a benefit to list all those other jobs because it means you were a valued asset and moved up. So you need to include it. It’s honest that way, but it is also valuable to your resume. 

Lauren Francis: A lot of people I see make the mistake of listing the company multiple times and then listing the different roles underneath the company. So it’s more succinct and clear to them. 

Dawn Rasmussen: That’s what I do. I stack the job title. I put the company name, city, and state on line 1, the most recent job and dates worked on line 2, line 3, line 4, line 5, et cetera. So that way, it’s nice and concise, and someone can clearly see, “Okay, they moved up.” 

Lauren Francis: What is your advice on location? Do you think it’s important to say? On some, we see the United States. On others, we see Scapoose, Oregon; at other times, I’ll see Portland Metro. What is your advice there?

It’s changing, and I think a lot of it changed with the work-from-home inspired by our COVID pandemic. Many people started working from home. So, in general, and especially with so many privacy concerns.

Dawn Rasmussen: People who post their resume on job boards are just inundated with spam, and quite frankly, there’s not, as far as I know, any qualification process for who constitutes an employer on those boards. You pay the money, and then you have access to these people. You don’t know where your information is being shipped off to.

I generally recommend your phone number, email address, and LinkedIn profile, just to be safe. Unless the city and state are geographically cited in the job description, then you can mention them. But often, people guess where you live based on where your last job is.

Lauren Francis: But you don’t put your address on your resume?

Dawn Rasmussen: No, no, no longer.

Lauren Francis: Some of our listeners do not know what a pink slip means. I just thought I’d circle back to that because that is an old term. What is a pink slip? Just for those who aren’t familiar with that term and how it came to be. 

Dawn Rasmussen: Well, back in the old days, when you were going to be terminated or reorganized or have your job eliminated or whatever, your notice would come in on a pink slip of paper. It’s just become more of the vernacular now versus the reality. It’s mostly an email from a high-up here or someone walking into your office, saying you have 10 minutes to pack everything up. 

Lauren Francis: It was just one of those things where people go, “What are you talking about?” I dated myself; help!

What are the most common questions you receive from people who want to work with you, or what do they come to you with? I think there are a lot of discoveries that happen in your work. They come to you for a very specific reason, and it turns into something else because of the conversation and the depth of experience you have in working with people. You’re able to bring more than writing a resume.

Dawn Rasmussen: People from all walks of life have walked through my virtual doors, and I’ve worked with everybody from entry-level people or new immigrants to the United States to CEOs on Fortune Five. I feel like I’ve gotten a secret MBA because I’ve taken the time to get to know all these folks and ask in-depth questions. How many times do you get to sit down and talk to someone who’s the chairman of a rocket company sending HBO satellites up in orbit and stuff like that?

I try to help people see their own value. The biggest challenge, in particular, is that women do not acknowledge their own power and value, and I can tell you this over and over. I’ve worked with many senior female executives who don’t see what they bring to the table.

One of the first things I do in that conversation is when they start doubting themselves and saying, “Oh, I’m not sure I’m not ready.” I say, “Okay, get ready. Write this down. Would a man ask themselves this?” They’re like, “Oh.” 

I’m not trying to generalize, but I’ve seen a disproportionate number of women who oftentimes double-think themselves or talk themselves out of an opportunity. Whereas a man is just, “Oh, I’ll just throw my hat in. It can’t hurt.” Women need to own their power, and the more you understand how you fit into the bigger picture, the more you convey your value. The more you can convey your value, the more you can justify a raise. It could justify being promoted. It can help you see your way out of a bad situation, such as, “Hey, I’ve got more value than this. I can go find some other employer.” 

There are always options, and being aware of that and being able to be in the moment and get that into your DNA about what value you bring to the table.

That’s the biggest thing I’ve found after all this time working with people: everybody has value. You have to learn to tell your story. When I talk to my clients, I just say, “You’ve always been this great. I’m just polishing the mirror and holding it up. So now you can see it, and everybody else can too.”

That’s where you need to spend time, get in the moment with your resume, and feel what you’ve brought to the table. That is an accurate reflection of you. That’s where people get the benefit of working with a third party, such as myself, is that we can be that. We can be a referee, champion, cheerleader, and reality check that sometimes we may doubt ourselves, and someone, such as myself, can say, “You are that great, and here’s why. Obviously, you got this far for a reason. Let’s find out what those reasons are.” And that helps clients see their value. 

Lauren Francis: Absolutely. You also recommend that people title their resume. For example, they are a Director of Marketing. 

Dawn Rasmussen: Yeah. that’s the job title headline I use at the top. You need to be clear. It’s like branding. If I’m a hiring person, I’m looking for a marketing director. Your resume pops up. It says marketing director. That’s like a subtle subliminal thing that has already clicked in my head. Now, it’s, “Okay, great. You’re a marketing director. That’s what I’m looking for.”

As hiring people, they’re desperately trying to find the next person they can hire so they don’t have to do this anymore. If the resume can make the case, it’s like hiring a marketing director. “Great. Okay. Oh my gosh, look at all the things they’ve done. It’s quantified. This person has been go, go, go, impact, impact, impact, value, value, value.” It’s like, “I’m going to pick up the phone and call this person. Cause I don’t want my competitor to do that.” 

Lauren Francis: But you wouldn’t recommend they put Marketing Professional?

Dawn Rasmussen: No, because that’s a nebulous term. Concrete terms definitely help you be clear on your career level. And don’t say, “Expert.” That says nothing. Everybody is an expert. 

Lauren Francis: Exactly. I saw photos on resumes for a while and don’t see them as much anymore. What is your position on that? 

Dawn Rasmussen: Okay. If you’re talking about a photo of the individual, that’s a big no. We definitely want to steer clear of that because it can reveal protected class information. However, if you’re applying for an international job, that is accepted on a CV. They ask for things in CVs that are not standard here in the United States, like your marital status, how many kids you have, your citizenship, and what year you were born.

But that is not included in American resumes. The other thing, and you just touched on the giant iceberg here, is the other photos on your resume. There’s a lot of chat, and people love infographic resumes. They’re lovely, gorgeous, and visually appealing. But the problem is oftentimes the content is in text boxes that are not readable by the applicant tracking system. So after all that work you’re going in the garbage can. I tell people I don’t do infographic resumes, but I will do resumes with graphical elements, including colors.

You can have imagery that complements. For example, I work with someone who’s really heavy in manufacturing and laser cutting. He’s a VP. So, I got an image at the very top that I put in the lighter shade. So it’s like a ghost image of a bench press cutting laser on metal. And that’s perfect for him because that’s who he is. That’s okay. You can add charts and graphs and things like that, but they have to be images you set behind the text so that the systems can skip right over the images. It’ll read the texts, and that’s what you want. But infographic resumes don’t do that.

Lauren Francis: As we come to a close, what I love about your website is that you have so many different service offerings that you make available to people. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Dawn Rasmussen: Absolutely. There are the usual suspects, such as resume writing, cover letters, and LinkedIn, but a lot of people need help with interviewing. There’s also job search coaching. I’ve also added another one for salary negotiation. I think that is a huge problem because a lot of people don’t even negotiate. I’m sure you’ve probably seen that a lot. and this is the one thing that will directly impact their type of life that they live is their earnings, and they don’t spend a lot of time brushing up on negotiation. The statistics are staggering that something like 70 percent of people don’t even negotiate. Women are even less likely to negotiate. People also don’t realize what things are negotiable, such as your time off or additional health insurance, because that’s a big one. So many different things are part of the overall negotiation package. 

I’ve created another service that’s like a quick-start entrepreneur’s guide because many people say, “I’m done with this. I want to start my own business.” And they don’t know where to start. It is daunting. I remember starting my business and I’m sure you do too. And you feel like a sheep lost out there in the big wide-open meadow, and you don’t know where to go. Having someone that kind of says, “Okay, here’s the Cliff Notes version to help you get started on the right pathway.” I’ve also coached a lot of people into starting their own businesses. 

It’s fun. I love doing what I do. Not many people get to say that they’ve been in a job where they help and make a difference in people’s lives. For me, I get paid for what I do, but the intrinsic value of knowing they’re trying to make a difference is really awesome. 

Lauren Francis: It’s true. We feel the same way about the work we do, helping people in jobs and also coaching them along the way. It’s such satisfying work. We’re truly, truly blessed and grateful. 

Is there anything else that you want people to know about, that people need to know, or that we missed? 

Dawn Rasmussen: You should always remember that you have value and make sure that you get professional development while you’re in a job. You have a career, which is the bigger picture, and the job is the very current present moment. What you want to be able to do is keep in mind what your career goals are while you’re in this job, gain experience, skills, and knowledge, and roll that into the next opportunity. You might as well do something you enjoy. I feel very fortunate. I’ve had that opportunity. Every single job I’ve had, I’ve loved. It’s a great career.

Lauren Francis: That’s great. Same here. We’re definitely in the right spot. 

It’s been a pleasure having you on. We refer so many of our candidates to you. I appreciate knowing about the entrepreneur piece because we do have several people who come to us at a certain stage in their careers through the end of their careers, but they’re not really done yet. That’s a great service to offer, and I appreciate knowing about it. So, thanks so much. 

Dawn Rasmussen: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.